OBITUARY I
N 1958 LewisTurrell became the first non-Scot
Highland Society of London’s
Gold Medal. He was a superb musician and well worthy of the accolades of his great win. He died the day before Good Friday 2011 after a long and courageous battle with lung cancer. He was a fourth generation New
Zealander whose family can be traced back to the first settlers in Christchurch in the 1840s. Lewis had his first lessons in the early 1940s from an ex-pat Scot, Bill Kennedy. Bill was not a great player but as a teacher he was better than most. Even in his 70s Lewis had faultless technique. After a few years
the family moved to Wellington and another Scot,GeorgeMacLennan of Inverness, became his teacher. His progress was extremely quick and is perhaps summed up by his being asked to pipe the Prime Mini- ster, Peter Fraser (also a Scot from Caithness), into the debating chamber at a state opening of parliament. In 1948 Lewis was back in
Auckland and joined the City of Auckland Pipe Band but he had a yearning to travel to Scotland to further his piping education. He left school at 15 and for the next five years saved his money and headed off,
31
Lewis A.Turrell MBE 1935-2011 to win the
first for Brisbane, Australia, for six months and then on to Scotland. During his time in Brisbane he
met another ex-pat Scot, Donald MacKinnon, and was given a letter of introduction to the renowned Donald MacLeod. For three years Donald was his only teacher and Lewis blossomed into a great player of ceol beag and ceol mor.When Lewis played a tune Donald would often say, ‘That was very nice Lewis, but have you considered it this way?’ Donald would then play the tune and Lewis
instinctively
knew what message was being conveyed and would then play it accordingly. This can only happen when you have a pupil who has an innate understanding
of the music. Lewis had numerous
successes around the games culminating in the winning of the Gold Medal at Inverness in
1958. That he could also play ceol beag was
shown at the same
competition when he won the Strathspey and Reels, the Jig and was second in the March. He had also won the BraemarMedal for ceol mor, in 1957. During his time in Scotland he toured with the Scottish entertainment group the White Heather Club and appeared on stage and on television. He was also in demand as a recitalist for the BBC.
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