Background
SELLICK, Phyllis was born on June 16, 1911 in Newbury Park, Essex.
music educator university professor
SELLICK, Phyllis was born on June 16, 1911 in Newbury Park, Essex.
Glenarm College, Ilford, Royal Academy, of Music and in Paris.
Born at Ilford, Essex, Phyllis Sellick started to play the piano by ear at the age of three and had her first music lesson on her fifth birthday. She specialised in French and English music She first met Cyril Smith at a concert in the Queen"s Hall, London.
Composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams (Introduction and Fugue "Foreign Phyllis and Cyril") and Lennox Berkeley (Concerto for Two Pianos, premiered at the Albert Hall in December 1948) wrote music specially for them.
Their career continued even after Smith lost the use of his left hand following two strokes, when the couple would play specially devised material for three hands, including a concerto written for them in 1969 by Malcolm Arnold (Concerto for Piano 3 Hands and Orchestra, Op 104, sometimes known as Concerto for Phyllis and Cyril). She and Smith were awarded OBEs in 1971.
She continued to work into her 90s, despite her failing eyesight and loss of her playing ability in her left hand following an accident. In 2002 she appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation radio programme Desert Island Discs.
One of her choices was Sergei Rachmaninoff"s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini to which she added "I would like Cyril to play it".
Phyllis Sellick continued to work into her 10th decade.
Married Cyril Smith in 1937 (died in 1974).