ELEANOR KAUFMAN (Soprano)
THELMA REISS-SMITH (Violoncello)
JOHN IRELAND (Pianoforte) THELMA REISS-SMITH came from her native Plymouth to the Royal College of Music in London at the age of only thirteen, as winner of an open scholarship, and even as a student made a name for heiself as a 'cellist of exceptional powers. Immediately on leaving College she was engaged for a tour throughout England. making a great impression wherever she played ; her performance of the Haydn Concerto at the Petersfield Festival was an outstanding success. But no one who heard her play the Elgar Concerto at the Prom on October 1, this year, needs to be told that here is a young artist of rare gifts, one for whom a distinguished future is clearly in store.
HER name, and the versatility with which she can sing in other languages than her own, notably German and French, might easily persuade listeners, that Eleanor Kaufman was a visitor to our shores, rather than one of ourselves. But she is English by birth and tradition, and studied her art in this country, ton, winning a place for herself among our own singers under her maiden name of Neville-White. After her marriage, to another good Briton, she was an absentee from the concert platform and from B.B.C. programmes for some time, coming to the microphone again only )ast August.