Maureen Jones, the Sydney-born pianist who became one of the best known Australian chamber musicians of her generation, has died in Lugano, Switzerland, at the age of 99. Limelight reported her death on 23 September 2026.
Jones was 10 when Edgar Bainton, then director of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, invited her to study there with the pianist Alexander Hmelnitsky. While still a student she made her professional debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In her early twenties she was invited to join the original ensemble of Musica Viva.
She later went to London and then moved to Switzerland, where she formed a duo with the Australian violinist Brenton Langbein in 1952. The pair performed widely in Switzerland and Italy, and with the horn player Barry Tuckwell they formed a trio. The Edinburgh Festival commissioned the composer Don Banks to write for that trio, and his Horn Trio of 1962 became a standard work for the combination. Jones also appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich and the Berlin Philharmonic, and returned to Australia regularly to perform, teach and adjudicate.
Source: Limelight