Rowsby Woof


Edward Rowsby Woof was an English violinist and music educator. He was born in Coalbrookdale, son of Edward Woof and his wife Sarah. He became professor of violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and wrote instructional works on violin technique and violin studies. Among his pupils were Nona Liddell, William Waterhouse, Frederick Grinke, Jean Pougnet, Priaulx Rainier, Rosemary Rapaport, Sidney Griller, Peter Mountain, Colin Sauer and Felix Kok.

Career

From information in prospectuses of the Royal Academy of Music.
Woof was awarded the Royal Academy of Music's Bronze Metal for Violin in 1904, the Silver Metal for Violin in 1905, and the Dove Prize in 1906. In 1907, he made his debut at Bechstein Hall.
Rowsby Woof married Victoria Mary Fox, a music teacher, in 1911. He died at St. Andrew's Hospital in Dollis Hill, London in 1943.

Legacy

The Rowsby Woof Prize for Royal Academy of Music violin students, founded by his wife in 1944, was awarded annually in the years 1945 to 1963. The Prize Board listing the awardees was added to the RAM Museum's collection in 2011. Recipients include Colin Sauer, Clarence Myerscough, Brendan O' Reilly and John Georgiadis of the Gabrieli String Quartet, and Roy Malan, founding concertmaster of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.
Rowsby Woof is listed in the Musicians' Book of Remembrance in the Musician's Chapel at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in London.
Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, once found his young daughter in tears over her violin lesson, a piece by Rowsby Woof. Stating, "I'll fix it for you; I'll put him in the story," he added a story about a gullible dog guarding cabbages in a garden and named the dog Rowsby Woof. The story became Chapter 41 of the book, "Rowsby Woof and the Fairy Wogdog."

Selected works

Compositions
Arrangements
Instructional works