Speaker

Oona Ivory was born in Scotland.  She began to study the piano age 4 and the violin age 5. She joined the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, then, age 12, won the major scholarship to The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. At 15 she won the two major string prizes at The Royal Conservatoire and began to study and perform with Leon Spierer, the concert master of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Oona read music at King’s College, Cambridge, then violin as a post graduate student at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with the Canadian violinist Fred Grinke and with Yehudi Menuhin.

She has performed Benjamin Britten’s violin concerto with the composer conducting and Michael Tippett’s Fantasia Concertante under Tippett’s baton, and has also performed chamber music with, amongst others, Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Oona taught, examined and performed in Russia, China, Japan, Malaysia and Europe before returning to  Scotland to become Chair of Scottish Ballet, and Governor of the Royal Scottish Conservatoire.

In 1996 Oona founded and became Executive Chair of The National Piping Centre, the world centre of excellence for piping and the signature by which Scots are known worldwide, a position which she still holds today.