Christine Croshaw at 80: Britain’s best kept musical secret

Described by Terry Lewis of Jaques Samuels Pianos as ‘one of the best kept secrets in the UK’ and by Musical Opinion as ‘a most gifted artist’, pianist, teacher and performance coach Christine Croshaw has recently retired from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, where she taught for nearly 50 years, although she will continue to teach and coach privately.

Croshaw, who celebrated her 80^th birthday in October, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a concert pianist and revered teacher. She studied with Harold Craxton, Gordon Green and Vivian Langrish, and was awarded all the major prizes for solo piano, chamber music and song accompaniment, including the coveted Chappell Gold Medal.

In addition to her solo work, she has worked as a noted collaborative pianist, partnering with many eminent artists including Nathan Milstein, Alan Civil, Antonio Janigro, Robert Winn, Peter-Lukas Graf, Jacques Zoon and Michel Debost.

‘The opportunity to play recitals with Christine Croshaw was something not to be missed. Always a wonderful fresh musical approach to whatever the repertoire. I remember so often being touched by the candid and nuanced phrases which emanated from her hands. Treasured memories.’ - Robert Winn, flautist

As a pioneering music educator and performance coach, she was one of the first to recognise the benefits of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) for performing musicians, in particular it’s use for relieving stage fright and the anxiety of playing from memory. In 2014 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for her ‘seminal contribution to music education’ at the Music EXPO/Classic FM Awards at London’s Barbican Centre.

Shortly after her 60^th birthday, Christine Croshaw faced a huge challenge in her personal and professional life when she lost most of her sight due to haemorrhages behind the retinas of both eyes. She had been looking forward to more solo and collaborative work, with concert dates already in her diary. Determined not to give up playing, she referred to the techniques of NLP, which had allowed her to eliminate memory anxiety, and embarked on a solo career, playing and recording everything from memory. She gave many words and music recitals with leading actors, including Sir Derek Jacobi, Edward Fox, Prunella Scales and Dame Eileen Atkins, and released two acclaimed recordings of solo piano music by Camille Saint-Saens and Gabriel Fauré, the latter rightly seen as one of the ‘go-to’ recordings of the composer’s piano music.

Here colleagues, friends and former students pay tribute to Christine Croshaw in celebration of her 80^th birthday.

‘The mastery and command evoked by her playing has, in my thinking, that touch of aristocratic and refined artistry, that flash of light tenderness, the fleet of foot touch, which in earlier times was the stamp and style of Solomon, Myra Hess and Clara Haskell.’ - Edward Fox, OBE, actor

‘I have long admired her crisply pliant playing, especially in her recordings, which in its unshowy but characterful style seems to me to reflect exactly the person.’ - Roger Vignoles, pianist

‘She is that rare performer of natural brilliance for whom the psychology of learning, and how to best enable fellow musicians, is a golden thread running through her life. I am one of countless pianists who owes more to Christine than she would ever readily accept.’ - Andrew Matthews-Owen, pianist, professorial staff, Trinity Laban

‘It is a challenge to describe Christine Croshaw adequately in her roles as pianist and teacher; in common with all great musicians, what she communicates in her playing, and verbally to her students, defies any easy analysis. Christine is a truly holistic teacher; she is deeply interested in the whole person, to the extent that I came to realise the best, possibly only, way to improve as a pianist would be to work on my personal development in all ways: physically, artistically and emotionally. I am enormously grateful to Christine for her musicianship, technical knowledge, her insights, perceptiveness, personal warmth and her sense of humour.’ - John Reid, pianist, chamber music professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

‘She is such a well-grounded yet open-minded musician. I remember mentioning that I thought NLP might have interesting applications for musical performance. Little did I suspect how quickly she would investigate and seriously study it, and then apply it to her teaching, both individually and in classes in quite groundbreaking ways. She immediately dispensed with any of the cultishness surrounding this psychological discipline or any attempt to take credit for or ownership of any new pedagogical ‘method’. She just generously gave her new-found knowledge to anyone who was interested. This total lack of self-aggrandisement was also evident in her playing... It was clear, thoughtful and moving and just went straight to the heart of the music.’ - Douglas Finch, pianist, composer and professor of piano at Trinity Laban

‘Christine was always very approachable, friendly and always somewhat self-deprecating. She was modest and unassuming; great qualities in a teacher and performer… I was aware of the high regarding which she was held and how greatly loved she was by generations of students.’ - Philip Fowke, pianist

Tributes compiled by Frances Wilson.