PROFESSOR WALTER MONY - Ph.D. H.dip.Ed. ARCM. LRSM.

WALTER MONY was born in Canada, studied music there, in the USA and at the Royal College of Music in London on an Associated Board Scholarship.

His career has spanned musical activity as soloist, conductor, lecturer, and chamber music performer.  He has given many contemporary works and concertos their first performance, several of which have been dedicated to him, and has appeared on television, broadcast performances and tours as conductor, concert artist, adjudicator, master-class clinician and lecturer in the United Kingdom, Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Southern Africa.  Records and compact discs of performances have been released internationally.

He was appointed as senior lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand where he has been the musical director for numerous operatic musical productions and symphony concerts.  He received his doctorate from the university for his research on Avant-Garde String Techniques, and was subsequently appointed as Professor in the Chair of Music and Head of Department.

As chamber musician, Walter Mony was the violin/viola member of the internationally known Nederburg Harp Trio (with Kathleen Alister and Lucien Grujon) which toured Europe successfully, recorded for the BBC in London and had several recordings released in the USA.  He was the founder-conductor of the SABC Youth Training Orchestra and received critical acclaim for conducting the orchestra in Lausanne, Switzerland at the international festival on several American tours.

 He organized and directed the Total Music Collection, a project sponsored by the Total Oil Co. SA, which commissioned works from leading composers and also promoted a composition competition.  Of the 60 works comprising the collection, over 20 have had premiere performances with professional symphony orchestras conducted by Professor Mony.

During 1992, Walter Mony participated in a symposium and concert given in Warsaw, Poland, presented by the Polish section of the ISCM, where he read a paper and performed on both violin and viola in chamber works.  Whilst on sabbatical leave in 1992, he was accorded the status of Visiting Fellow at the institute of Education at the London University, where he researched Multicultural/Intercultural Music Education and presented papers at Goldsmith's College, SOAS (London University) and Dartington College of Arts and participated in multicultural conferences at Thames Valley University and the Commonwealth Institute, London.  He was selected in 1993 to participate in the International Forum of the European Academy of Music in Denmark with 15 other music educators and other academics from 13 countries.  During the same year, he gave a lecture tour in Canada  at Dalhousie (Halifax) and Montreal Universities, and in the USA at Youngstown Ohio and Iowa State University.  In 1994, he presented the paper Towards an Ecology of Intercultural Music Education in Southern Africa at the ISME Conference in Tampa, Florida.

Since 1995 Mony has annually conducted symphony concerts in California and Ohio, presided over master classes, gave guest lectures and seminars to teachers and students in both the USA and Canada at the universities of Bozeman Montana, Lawrence Kansas, Youngstown Ohio, and Edmonton Alberta.  He recorded on CD's the works of the composer in residence in Ohio: violin solos, unaccompanied solo viola, chamber works for two violins, violin and viola and a trio for clarinet, viola, and pianoforte.  Most recently he conducted symphony concerts and performed concertos in New Zealand with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.  During January 2001 he recorded David Honigsberg's formidable viola concerto in Kiev with their orchestra for a future release on a CD.

The University of the Witwatersrand has conferred on him the titles of Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professional Research Fellow for his meritorious service.  Many of his students hold prominent teaching and playing positions in Europe, the UK, USA, New Zealand, and Southern Africa.

Composers whose works have been premiered by MONY as soloist or conductor include : RSA - Stefans Grove, Peter Klatzow,  Carl van Wyk, Graham Newcater, Thomas Rajna ,Arthur Wegelin, Jeanne Zaidel, David Hoenigsberg. Israel -  Ami Mayani, Marc Lavry. USA -  Robert Rollin ------ Several of these works are dedicated to MONY