May Harrison

May Harrison (born August 23, 1890 in India , † June 8, 1959 ) was a British violinist.

Harrison won a gold medal in a violin competition at the age of ten. From 1901 she studied at the Royal College of Music with Enrique Arbós . From 1908 she was a student of Leopold Auer in Saint Petersburg . She made her debut in Great Britain in 1903 at St James's Hall under Henry Wood , and made her international debut in Berlin in 1909 . In the same year she represented Fritz Kreisler , who was unable to attend , at the Mendelssohn Festival in Helsingfors .

Harrison became known early on as an interpreter of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach . In the time before the First World War, she performed with her sister, the cellist Beatrice Harrison , all over Europe with the double concerto by Johannes Brahms , a. a. also under the direction of Glasunow in St. Petersburg. After Frederick Delius had heard the work under Thomas Beecham in Manchester , he wrote his own double concerto for them and dedicated it to them. In 1930 Delius May dedicated his third violin sonata.

In the period before the Second World War Harrison appeared with the works of Handel , Brahms , Elgar , Grieg , Mendelssohn , Glasunow and Arnold Bax and made recordings for the radio. From 1935 to 1947 she also taught at the Royal College of Music .

The Harrison siblings were among the leading figures on the English music scene in the first half of the 20th century: in addition to their sister, the cellist Beatrice , their two other sisters, Margaret (violinist) and Monica (singer), were well-known performers.