Frederick Grinke
Canadian violinist Frederick Grinke was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 8 August 1911. He began to play violin aged nine, and his teachers included John Waterhouse. His first broadcast was when he was about twelve, and at fifteen he formed a trio. Later he studied with Rowsby Woof, Adolf Busch and Carl Flesch.
He played second violin in the Kutchner String Quartet and then became leader of the Boyd Neel Orchestra, where his first performance was of Britten's Bridge Variations at the 1937 Salzburg Festival. From 1939 until 1978 he taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London. From 1940 he played in the Royal Air Force Symphony Orchestra, and after the war, briefly returned to the Boyd Neel Orchestra before concentrating on his solo career.
He became particularly associated with Ralph Vaughan Williams, but also played and recorded music by J S Bach, Béla Bartók, Arnold Bax, Beethoven, Arthur Benjamin, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Dale, Howard Ferguson, Hector Gratton, Handel, John Ireland, Kenneth Leighton, Mozart, Purcell, Rachmaninov, Edmund Rubbra and Smetana.
Frederick Grinke died in Ipswich, UK on 16 March 1987, aged seventy-five.