Madame Apolline Niay-Darroll

Madame Apolline Niay-Darroll 

Pianist and founder of the South African College of Music in Cape Town.

5 December 1868 in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire - 20 January 1920 in Cape Town.

Apolline Niay-Darroll received her first piano instruction from her father, Gustave Niay, who was of French descent. Continuing her study with Adam Wright and later with Dr Swinnerton Heap in Birmingham, she obtained the Senior Certificate at the RAM at the age of fourteen. In 1883 she made her debut in Birmingham at a Philharmonic Union concert and later, undertook a tour of Scotland and the north of England. She enrolled at the RCM in 1887 and studied pianoforte under Franklin Taylor, was elected a Council Exhibitioner in 1888 and had the honour in 1890 of playing at a Command Performance for the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.

Early in 1891 she emigrated to Australia, where she gave concerts in Sydney and elsewhere, formed the Sydney Quintet Society and organised a Conservatoire of Music in New South Wales. She arrived in South Africa at the end of 1893 to marry her cousin, George Darrol of Shropshire, England, and made her debut in Cape Town in 1894. At the invitation of Lord Milner, she also performed at Government House.

In 1909 Madame Niay-Darroll applied her Australian experience to South African circumstances, interested a large number of influential people and music teachers in a projected "National Musical Institution" and on 19 January 1910, the South African College of Music was officially opened by the Mayor of Cape Town in the National Bank, Strand Street. Initially she served as principal, secretary and treasurer, also reaching pianoforte and theoretical subjects. The importance of her pioneering work was officially recognised in 1911 when an annual provincial grant for the institution was approved. "Had it not been for her," wrote Professor W.H. Bell, in the SACM Quarterly for January 1922, "there is no doubt in my mind that the College would never have survived the year of its birth." 

The Royal Academy of Music in London acknowledged her pioneering work in South Africa in 1912 by conferring on her the diploma of an Honorary RAM. Her devotion to the cause of music in South Africa inspired this pioneering woman to found a Music Teachers' Association of South Africa, the first of its kind in this country, which she served in the triple roles of chairwoman, secretary and treasurer. Closely connected with her Association was the supplementary introduction of a monthly magazine called the Musical Monthly, which she edited in conjunction with Dr H.W. Egel of Wellington; and before the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 she also launched a South African Eisteddfod in Cape Town, which has survived up to the present time. 

Until the time of her death in 1920 she played a leading part in its organisation and management. Her lasting monument is, however, the College of Music. The College has an inscribed photograph of the founder which was presented by her daughter, Lily Niay-Darroll.

Bibliography

Van der Merwe, F.Z.: S1tid-Afrikaanse musiekbibliografie, 1787-1952. J.L. van Schaik, Pretoria, 1958.

Source

Malan, Dr. Jacque P., ed. South African Music Encyclopaedia. Vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, 299-300.