Daisy Kennedy

South Australian violinist (16 Jan 1893 - 30 July 1981) After tuition with Otakar Ševčík in Prague and at the Vienna Meisterschule, she made her début in Vienna in October 1911 and in London two months later. She settled in England in 1912. On her tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1919-20 Kennedy was greeted with acclaim. On 17 April 1914 at the register office, Marylebone, London, she had married the Russian pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch, with whom she often performed. The marriage ended in divorce in 1924. On 16 December that year she married the poet and dramatist John Drinkwater, also a divorcee, at the register office, Kensington, London. She was seriously injured in a motorcar accident in 1937, and her husband died shortly after. Left impecunious, she became the conductor and leader of a light orchestra at the Regent Palace Hotel in London, remaining there until 1950.