Helen Quach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helen Quach | |
|---|---|
 Quach circa 1977 | |
| Born | 4 July 1940 |
| Died | 31 July 2013 (aged 73) Canberra, Australia |
| Occupation | Symphony conductor |
| Years active | 1958–2008 |
| Employers | |
Helen Quach (/kwɒk/ "quok"; 4 July 1940 – 31 July 2013) was a Vietnamese-born symphony conductor who founded the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra in Sydney, served as the music director of the Manila Symphony Orchestra and guest conducted for symphonies around the world.
Quach was educated in New South Wales, where she studied under noted Russian conductor Nikolai Malko. She then took a conducting course from Sir John Barbirolli and Carlo Zecchi in Italy before moving to the US to serve as an assistant to Leonard Bernstein. She is considered as the first Asian female conductor hired by Bernstein in 1967. (The first female conductor hired by Bernstein was Sylvia Caduff in 1960). Helen Quach spent much of her adult life in Australia and the Philippines. Critics often commented on her toughness in spite of a diminutive appearance.[citation needed]
Quach was born in Saigon on 4 July 1940, to Chinese parents; her father was in business and her mother was a musician. Quach began playing the piano at the age of five.[1] She moved to Australia when she was ten years old.[2] Her parents had sent her there to increase her educational opportunities but also to keep her away from war.[3] She studied at the Brigidine Convent in Randwick, New South Wales.[4] Quach later studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music.[1][5]
Quach came from an academically oriented family. Her two brothers both became physicians. On her decision to attend a music conservatory, she said she thought that universities become "too academic. I don't like to clutter up my life with all those degrees."[6]
In 1958, Quach was a second-year student at the NSW Conservatorium when she became one of the first two women awarded a scholarship to study under noted conductor Nikolai Malko, who was then the musical director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The announcements of the award had specifically excluded women, but Malko said he reconsidered because Quach and the other female recipient were "more than usually talented".[4] In 1964, Quach won a scholarship for a conducting course taught by Sir John Barbirolli and Carlo Zecchi in Sicily.[7]
She appeared as a contestant on the November 13, 1966, episode of US panel game show What's My Line?.
