Audio File
Hilda Collens
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
2019

Dororthy Ardern remembers having lessons with Frederick Thurston at the Northern School of Music, 1940s-1950s.

Dorothy: Playing the clarinet, we used to have Frederick Thurston who was the top clarinettist of the day in London, one of the London Orchestras. He used to come up periodically to give lessons to the first-study clarinettists but, because it was only a second-study for me, I wasn’t really eligible for a session with him. It was too expensive. But Hilda Collens said that there was a slot, a half hour slot and she was letting me have it. So I got one or two lessons with Frederick Thurston as well. And he used to say ‘I love your little finger! Those clarinettists can’t trill with their little finger. You can, because you’re a pianist’.
Heather: That’s a very strange compliment, isn’t it?
D: Yeah, oh he was quite a character, Frederick Thurston. The first-study clarinettists loved him. That was a real treat.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.