Maureen Jones

Maureen Jones was born in Sydney on 6 June 1927 and grew up in Warrawee, Turramurra and Gladesville on the city's upper North Shore. She started piano at six with Millicent Farraher and won Sydney Eisteddfod under-10 piano titles in 1935 and 1936, plus under-12 sight-reading in 1936. Edgar Bainton invited her to the Sydney Conservatorium to study with Alexander Hmelnitsky while she was still of primary-school age. She made early ABC radio broadcasts and, at thirteen, played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 (first movement) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in a children's concert. Neville Cardus and other Sydney critics already noted her presence in the city's musical life.

From 1948 to 1950 Jones played in Richard Goldner's fledgling Musica Viva ensemble with colleagues including Robert Pikler and Edward Cockman. They presented hundreds of chamber concerts that helped create a national audience for the form. Musica Viva Australia CEO Anne Frankenberg later said Jones was "fundamental" to the organisation's history and that her musicianship and stage presence "significantly built the audience for chamber music in this country." Jones kept returning as performer, teacher and adjudicator, including the 1997 Schubertiade.

After London she settled in Switzerland, forming a duo with Brenton Langbein (1952) and a horn trio with Barry Tuckwell. She played concertos with major orchestras, cofounded Quintetto Faure di Roma (1979), and was made a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

She married Dario De Rosa (daughter Nicoletta) and later Amadeo Baldovino, both of the Trio di Trieste. She taught at the Fiesole School of Music, lived for years in Florence, then moved to Lugano.

Jones died in Lugano in August 2026, aged 99. Corriere del Ticino noted her death on 13 August 2026; wider English coverage followed in late September via Limelight, The Violin Channel, Piano League and Slippedisc. The Fiesole School of Music published an Italian remembrance. Musica Viva Australia dedicated its next Sydney concert to her. Exact calendar day of death was not made public in the major English obituaries consulted.

Jones's formal musical education centred on the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under Alexander Hmelnitsky, after Bainton's invitation. The Conservatorium then combined school and tertiary training. That early institutional support, together with competition wins and broadcast work, launched a professional path before she left Australia in her early twenties.

After a brief London stay Jones based herself in Switzerland and Italy. Her 1952 duo with Brenton Langbein and the horn trio with Barry Tuckwell led to the Edinburgh Festival commission of Don Banks's 1962 Horn Trio. She premiered Britten's Piano Concerto in Italy with RAI Turin under Mario Rossi and played Tippett's Piano Concerto at the 1973 Proms with the Royal Philharmonic under Norman Del Mar. Appearances included the LSO, Tonhalle Zurich, Berlin Philharmonic, Edinburgh Festival, BBC, RAI, Santa Cecilia and La Fenice. In 1979 she co-founded Quintetto Fauré Di Roma with Pina Carmirelli and recorded Fauré's piano quintets.

Jones married pianist Dario De Rosa of the Trio di Trieste; they had a daughter, Nicoletta, who later lived in Trieste. She subsequently married the trio's cellist, Amedeo Baldovino, who died in 1998. She lived in Trieste, Rome, Florence and finally Lugano. In interviews she preferred to talk about music rather than private detail, while saying she remained attached to Trieste, where she had married twice and raised her daughter.

Public interviews emphasise craft over ideology. In Miriam Cosic's 2017 Musica Viva profile Jones waved aside personal biography and returned to repertoire, practice and teaching. Colleagues and Italian civic tributes stressed vitality, discipline and generosity toward younger musicians rather than a political programme.

After years in Rome, Jones taught the advanced chamber-music-with-piano course at the Fiesole School of Music with De Rosa. Former student Massimiliano Baggio became a long-term duo partner for her 90th-birthday concerts. In 2008 she donated a fifteen-piece collection of piano-four-hands music (1750s-1930s) to Fiesole. She also returned to Australia to teach and adjudicate.

Italy appointed Jones a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for her services to music. Trieste civic leaders marked her 90th birthday with public tributes. Musica Viva Australia dedicated Paul Lewis's 12 October 2026 Sydney recital to her memory after her death.

Documented recordings include Mozart sonatas with Brenton Langbein (1956), Schubert's Fantasie in F minor with Dario De Rosa (1969), Max Reger's Piano Quintet Op. 64 with Langbein and Swiss colleagues (VMS, 1991 issue), and Fauré's Piano Quintets Op. 89 and Op. 115 with Quintetto Fauré Di Roma for Claves (1986). The Tuckwell-Jones-Langbein trio's Don Banks and Brahms horn trios are part of the recorded legacy discussed in Australian classical media.