[Note: this CD-jacket bio was written in 2008 before Walter Mony’s passing. Visit www.waltermony.com for more information on this deeply-missed musician and educator.]

Walter Mony was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and began violin with George Bornoff and John Waterhouse. As a scholarship student at the Royal College in London he studied under Albert Sammons, Henry Hoist, and Max Rostal, soon becoming Assistant Principal of the London Symphony and a member of the Royal Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham.

Touring with the Nederburg Trio, with which he recorded extensively on major labels, he moved to South Africa, becoming Chair of Music at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He is beloved as a concert soloist, having performed the South African premieres of the concertos of Stravinsky, Walton, Suk, Shostakovich, and Bartók, as well as world premieres of South African Composers Graham Newcater and Carl van Wyk. He is equally versatile on violin and viola.

Mony is active worldwide as a conductor of professional and youth orchestras, a string clinician and adjudicator, and also as a lecturer. The University of the Witwatersrand has conferred on him the titles of Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow for his meritorious service.

Many of his students hold prominent international playing and teaching positions. In recent years he has been involved in outreach programs for the disadvantaged children of the South African townships.

As of January 2005, Walter Mony was appointed Head of Strings at the renowned Victoria Conservatory of Music, British Columbia, Canada. He is the Artistic Director of the Summer String Academy, which functions at the VCM with a prestigious international Faculty during August of each year.

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