Romola Costantino

Romola Helen Louise Costantino OBE (also known as Romola Enyi)[1] (14 September 1930 – November 1988[2][3]) was a noted Australian pianist, accompanist and teacher, who also worked as a music, film and theatre critic.

Romola Costantino was the daughter of Napoleone Costantino (1889–1982), an Italian civil servant in Australia, and his Welsh-born wife Rosamond Lindner.[4] She studied at the NSW Conservatorium of Music under Alexander Sverjensky.[5] She was a graduate of the Royal College of Music in London, where her graduation performance was the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff.

She gave many broadcasts and recitals for the ABC, most notably as an accompanist for musicians such as Ruggiero Ricci[6] and Henryk Szeryng (on his 4th and last Australian tour in 1984).[7]

Romola Costantino gave the first solo piano recital in the Sydney Opera House (10 April 1973; to an invited audience), and she participated in the first public performance in the Opera House's Music Room (with the Carl Pini Quartet and Walter Sutcliffe, under the auspices of Musica Viva Australia).[8] She also formed a well known piano duo with Lance Dossor.

She was a member of the inaugural committee of the Accompanists' Guild of South Australia in 1983,[9] and was President of the Guild from 1984 to 1986.[10]

She recorded Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata with Robert Pikler, viola, and Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio with Pikler and Pamela Johnson, clarinet.[11] She also recorded two Schubert piano sonatas that had been left unfinished by Schubert and completed by Walter Dullo.[12] Other recordings include Ravel's La valse, and pieces by Debussy and Fauré.,[13] as well as a Telemann trio sonata for the (long-defunct) AWA record label in which she played the clavichord.

She was a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney.[14] She was also a music critic for the Sydney Morning Herald[15] and a film and theatre critic for the Sun-Herald.[16][17][18][19]

In 1971 Romola Costantino married George Enyi, an artist and sculptor,[4] and sometimes used her married name Romola Enyi.[1]

She was musical consultant for the film Between Wars (1974).[20]

In the New Year's Day Honours of 1978, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her services to the arts.[21]

Romola Costantino died in mid-November 1988, aged 58. Many of her programs and other papers are held at the National Library of Australia.[22]

References
  1. Australia and New Zealand Music Research
  2. Gaylord Music Library Necrology Archived 9 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  3. SMH Memorial Notice 6 November 2008
  4. State Library of NSW
  5. ADB:Alexander Sverjensky
  6. ACT Heritage Library
  7. Henryk Szeryng 1918–1988
  8. The Wolanski Foundation
  9. AGSA Newsletter March 2004
  10. Accompanists’ Guild of South Australia Inc.
  11. New York Viola Society
  12. ADB: Walter Dullo
  13. Ars Antiqua
  14. Calendar archive
  15. Midia
  16. Herbie Rides Again
  17. Walkabout with Malcolm Douglas
  18. bonza
  19. Anne Pender, Susan Lever, Nick Enright: An Actor's Playwright
  20. Yahoo! movies
  21. It's an Honour: OBE
  22. National Library of Australia

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