Alma Brock-Smith

(Mary) Alma Brock-Smith, (b Sheasgreen). Pianist, teacher, born Concord, Mass, 21 Feb 1908, died 18 Oct 2009, naturalized Canadian 1971; ATCM 1927. As a young woman she lived in Saskatoon. She taught there privately 1924-34 and studied 1927-38 with Lyell Gustin. She also studied on scholarship at the Chicago Musical College in 1928 with Percy Grainger, in New York in 1930 with Edwin Hughes, and in Seattle in 1935 and Los Angeles 1944-5 with Heifetz's accompanist Emmanuel Bay, and attended the master classes of Egon Petri 1958-9 and Rosina Lhévinne in Berkeley 1960-1. With the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra she played Bach and Mozart concertos in 1929 and the Schumann concerto in 1930.

During the 1930s she and Virginia Johnson performed as a piano team on Vancouver, Seattle, and San Francisco radio. She was also staff pianist 1934-5 at CKMO radio, Vancouver. After teaching at the San Francisco Cons 1947-62 and at the University of California 1953-62 she moved to Winnipeg in 1962 and began teaching at the University of Manitoba in 1965. She has specialized in the coaching of duo-piano teams, notably (Garth) Beckett and (Boyd) McDonald and Paulette Price and Claudette Caron. Other pupils include Marjorie Beckett, Karin Redekopp, Alice Enns, Doreen Romanyk, Margaret Turner, and John Clarke. Her husband, Harding St John Brock-Smith, was a board member 1972-4 of the ACO and president 1973-4 of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. She taught at the Victoria Conservatory of Music 1979-89, and in 1991 continued to give master classes in both Victoria and Edmonton.