Flautist Feels A Little Magic From The Past

Newcastle Herald

Friday February 9, 2007

GR

A YOUNG flautist's appearance on the Newcastle City Hall stage last night was a homecoming that pulled the heart strings of several generations. Emma Sholl, 26, played the principal flute in an Australian Chamber Orchestra concert only a few hundred metres from the birthplace of the ancestor from whom she is said to have inherited her musical talent. Sholl's great-grandmother Ethel Bartley, an accomplished concert pianist, was born in Tyrrell Street in 1888. "I never had the honour of meeting her, but playing close to where she lived is special," she said. She began playing flute at age seven and by 20, Sholl was one of the youngest full-time musicians with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She has toured the US, Japan, South Africa, Russia and China. None is more pleased for her than great-uncle Frank Walker, of Budgewoi, who said: "Despite her youth, she is doing so well."

© 2007 Newcastle Herald

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