Nora Clench

Clench, Nora
Clench, (Esther Leonora) Nora. Violinist, b St Mary's, near Stratford, Ont, 6 May 1867, d Toorak, Australia, 17 May 1938. She began violin lessons with her father, a lawyer and amateur violinist, and also studied with J.W. Baumann, at first intermittently, but later, when she boarded at Loretto College in Hamilton, regularly for two years. She was a pupil 1884-9 of Adolf Brodsky at the Leipzig Cons and graduated with a diploma and a prize for excellence. From 1889 to 1891 she performed in Canada and the USA, and was principal violin of an orchestra in Buffalo, NY. In 1891 she studied with Ysaÿe and appeared in several concerts in Europe. In 1892 she moved to London, where she gave many successful recitals and a command performance before Queen Victoria, who presented her with 'a handsome diamond and ruby brooch' (London Times 10 Feb 1893). She toured briefly in Canada in the fall of 1893, and accompanied Emma Albani on tours of Australia and South Africa in 1898. In 1904 she organized the Nora Clench Quartet, a female string quartet, which performed new works as well as standard repertoire and in 1907 premiered Max Reger's Quartet in D Minor in England. She retired in 1908 when she married the Australian painter Sir Arthur Streeton (1867-1943). She returned with him to Australia in 1924. Morgan's Canadian Men and Women of the Time (1898) describes Nora Clench's playing thus: 'tone broad, pure, resonant; style severely classical and correct'.

Author Sharyn Lea Hall