Rhondda Gillespie

Rhondda Gillespie (4 August 194130 December 2010) was an Australian-born classical pianist who resided primarily in the United Kingdom and Barbados. She was a specialist in the music of Franz Liszt and brought to light many of his lesser-known works. She was also renowned for her focus on contemporary music, and she gave many world premieres of British music. At age 8 she played Manuel de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance on Jack Davey's radio show Star Search.

She gave her first public recital at 12. Her formal studies were at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under Alexander Sverjensky (where her fellow students included Malcolm Williamson, Richard Farrell and Roger Woodward) and in Britain under Louis Kentner and Denis Matthews.

She was the second wife of the music critic and musicologist Denby Richards. They married on 29 May 1973, but divorced in 1977.

Death Rhondda Gillespie ceased playing in the 1990s due to arthritis in her fingers. She had come to spend much of her time (including the English winters) in Barbados,

Awards She won the Harriet Cohen Commonwealth Medal in 1959. Usko Meriläinen's First Piano Concerto (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Susskind) Franz Liszt's Weihnachtsbaum, Sonata in B minor, Consolations and 2 Ballades music by Charles Camilleri, Percy Grainger and Johann Sebastian Bach.