Cecile Stevens

Stevens was from Sydney, daughter of composer and organist John Michael Stevens and Kathleen Mary Noonan Stevens.^[1][2][3] As a child musician,^[4] she was conductor of the Parramatta Convention Orchestra in Sydney. She won a scholarship to attend the Royal Academy of Music in London.^[5]

Stevens played a Nicola Amati violin, a gift from her father.^[6][7] She played for Princess Mary and entertained wounded troops while performing in Great Britain during World War I, sometimes sharing the bill with Lena Ashwell.^[8] She made a two-year tour of English vaudeville theatres.^[5]

She toured in Canada and the United States after the war,^[8][9] and toured in Australia and New Zealand in 1921.^[10][11] "Miss Cecile Stevens is a talented young violinist with a distinguished grace and charm characteristic of her wonderful ability," noted a New Zealand newspaper.^[12] She gave radio concerts and made recordings, including a film, in the United States in 1922.^[13][14] She returned to London in the early 1920s,^[15] and played in London theatres.^[16] After she married in 1929, she moved to East Africa.^[17][18][19]

Stevens married Michael Aloysius Molloy in 1929, in London.^[15] She lived with her husband, an Irish veterinary officer,^[20] in Tanganyika Territory,^[21][22] at least until he retired in 1950.^[23]

Stevens died in Sydney on 9 October 1970 and was survived by her husband.^[24]