Frank Hutchens

Francis Hutchens OBE (15 January 1892 – 18 October 1965) was a pianist, music teacher and composer originally from New Zealand. He became a popular concert pianist in Australia and was a founding member of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, where he taught for fifty years. Early life and education Hutchens’ parents, Richard Lavers Hutchens and his wife Maria Giles, née Hosking, both Cornish, migrated to New Zealand in 1879. Richard tried his hand at farming and bootmaking before settling down at Hāwera as a piano teacher. Frank Hutchens was born in Leeston near Christchurch on 15 January 1892. He attended Hawera District High School. In 1904, at the age of twelve, Hutchens had the opportunity to demonstrate his talents after his piano teacher arranged for him to play for the virtuoso Ignaz Paderewski, who was then touring New Zealand. Impressed with the boy’s potential, Paderewski encouraged him to study in Europe. The following year, at the age of thirteen, Hutchens travelled alone to London to attend the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied piano and composition with Tobias Matthay and Frederick Corder. At the Academy, he won the Sterndale Bennett and Thalberg schol