Career[edit]
Early life[edit]
Julia Myra Hess was born on 25 February 1890 to a Jewish family[2] in South Hampstead, London.[3] She was the youngest of four children and began piano lessons at the age of five.[2] She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay, after winning a scholarship to the latter in 1903 at age 12.[1][4]
Death[edit]
On 25 November 1965, Hess died at the age of 75 of a heart attack in her London home.[23] A blue plaque marks her residence at 48 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.[24]
Hess's Steinway piano remains at the Bishopsgate Institute and has been renamed "Myra The Steinway" in her honour.
Hess's great-nephews included the British composer Nigel Hess,[25] who named his music publishing company Myra Music in her honour, and the Conservative politician and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson.[26]
Chicago Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts[edit]
In 1977, the Chicago Cultural Center began a series of free lunchtime concerts held at its Preston Bradley Hall every Wednesday from 12:15 pm to 1:00 pm, named in Hess's honour as the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The series is produced by Chicago's International Music Foundation, with performances at Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist in Chicago. Since 1977, the concerts have been broadcast live on radio station WFMT and streamed at WFMT.com.[27]