Check your stools for granddad’s music - pleads man

Piano request from music lover over Thomas F Dunhill compositions

SIDMOUTH residents have been asked to have a rummage in their piano stools - by a music lover hoping to uncover his composer granddad’s old and forgotten works.

Paul Vincent believes the town is just the sort of place where a great deal of Thomas F Dunhill’s music is lying unused in stools and on bookshelves, writes Charlie Lister. Dunhill, who lived from 1877 to 1946, penned compositions which exceeded 100 works over six decades.

The composer’s reputation rests on his educational and exam pieces, used by the Associated Board for examinations for more than a century.

According to Paul’s calculations, around a million people alive today have played his grandfather’s music.

Paul has established the Thomas Dunhill Connection, a project to celebrate his grandfather’s life and work.

The project will culminate in a festival, ‘Maker of Music’, at Bondleigh, near Okehampton.

Guests will include the New London Chamber Ensemble, and eminent Professor of music Jeremy Dibble, University of Durham.

To this end, Paul is looking to contact anyone who has any old and unused sheet music bearing the name Thomas Dunhill, Thomas F Dunhill, or possibly Thos F Dunhill.

To contact Paul, e-mail: pv@eclipse.co.uk, or call (01363) 775048.

For more information about the Thomas Dunhill Connection, visit www.thethomasdunhillconnection.co.uk.