[Note: this CD-jacket bio was written in 2000 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, where at an early age he studied violin with George Bornoff and John Waterhouse and was a frequent winner of festival competitions. Subsequently, he was awarded the overseas scholarship based on the examinations of the Board of the Royal School of Music, where he went to study under the renowned Albert Sammons, Henry Holst, and later with Max Rostal. He was also a master class student of Henryk Szeryng. Mony was soon involved in the music industry, where he became the Assistant Principal of the London Symphony Orchestra and a member of the world-renowned touring Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham.

He was the founder member of a number of professional chamber groups. It was a recital tour that took him to South Africa. Apart from the extensive involvement there with chamber groups such as the Nederburg Trio, with which he recorded extensively on major labels, he toured the whole of southern Africa giving concerto performances He performed the South African premieres of the concertos of Stravinsky, Walton, Suk, Shostakovich and Bartok, as well as the standard repertoire. Foremost South African composers such as Graham Newcater and Carl van Wyk, have composed concertos for him. He is equally versatile on the violin and viola.

Mony is active as a string clinician, adjudicator of international competitions, and lecturer throughout Africa, North America, South America and Europe. He also pursues a busy career as a conductor of professional and youth orchestras. Since 1982 he has served as Professor in the Chair of Music and Head of the Department at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The University has conferred on him the status of Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow. Many of his Students hold prominent teaching and playing positions in Europe, the UK, USA and southern Africa. He was also Director of the Total Oil Recording Project, which produced a number of CD’s of orchestral works by living South African composers. In recent years he has been involved in outreach programs for the disadvantaged children of South African townships.

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