Max OldingAM (4 July 1929 – 17 November 2021) and Pamela Page (born 4 April 1934) were a distinguished Australian husband and wife team of duo-pianists. They performed separately in recitals and as concerto soloists, chamber music performers and accompanists both nationally and internationally, but were best known as a piano duo.
They met when they tied for first place[1][2] in the inaugural Royal Concert Trust Fund Competition in London in 1954.[3] They married in Vienna in 1955.[4]
They performed as a duo for the opening of ABC Television in 1956. They gave many recitals in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Austria, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. In Australia they appeared with all major and many regional orchestras.
In 1975, Olding and Page appeared on TV, performing music for four hands in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's educational television series, All About Music.[10]
During the 1970s,[11] 1980s[12] and 1990s,[13] Olding and Page performed together in concerts that were also broadcast nationally on ABC radio.
Maxwell Charles Olding was born on 4 July 1929. He grew up in Launceston, Tasmania, where as a pianist he often competed against Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, who later joked that he turned his focus to composition because he could never beat Olding in piano competitions.[15] In 1950, at age 21, he was appointed an Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) Examiner. He won the Commonwealth final of the 1952 ABC's Concerto Competition.[16]
He was a patron of the Music Teachers Association of Queensland, the Piano Tuners and Technicians Guild and was a Fellow of the Queensland Conservatorium. He gave many master classes and seminars nationally and internationally.
He was deputy chair and principal examiner (Instrumental) for the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) in Queensland.[18] In later years he also worked extensively in Southeast Asia and New Zealand for the board in examining and promotional activities.
Max Olding held positions as president of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra Society and deputy chair of the Brisbane Institute of Art. He was patron of the Queensland Piano Tuners and Technicians Guild, and was a Life Member of the Accompanists Guild of Queensland Inc.[19]
Olding was a Churchill Fellow, awarded in 1970 "To investigate new methods and techniques relating to pianoforte teaching and instruction at advanced and tertiary levels - Japan, Russia, Hungary, France, UK, USA".[20]
Olding recorded chamber music including cello and piano works by Australian composer Dulcie Holland, on the CD, Study in Green: Music of Australian Composers;[21]Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms with violinist Dene Olding on Great Violin Sonatas;[22] and several pieces with Dene Olding on the compilation album, The Essential Violin.[23]
Max Olding recorded solo piano examination repertoire for the AMEB.[24]
He was also involved in conducting symphonic, choral, operatic and theatre works as well as teaching, administration and as organist and choirmaster.
Pamela Harcourt Page was born on 4 April 1934.[3] She won an Empire Overseas Scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music, London, where she was awarded the Maude Seton Prize for the most outstanding student. She later performed on BBC radio and television and gave solo and concerto performances in London and the English counties. She was subsequently accepted into Walter Gieseking's master class in Saarbrücken.
Back in Australia, Page provided the close-up scenes of the pianist's hands in Wherever She Goes,[28] a 1951 biographical film about Eileen Joyce (whose character was otherwise played by Suzanne Parrett).
During the 1950s and 1960s, Pamela Page was a pianist for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, now known as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC),[29] including as a solo pianist.[30][31]
In 2011, she (along with Olding) received a Doctor of Music honoris causa from the University of Queensland, where she had been employed in a teaching capacity since 1968.[25]
Honours and awards
In January 1991, Max Olding was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM)[35][36] "for service to music and to music education".[35]