Florence Hooton
Florence Hooton (8 July 1912-14 May 1988) was an English cellist. She was born in Scarborough, the daughter of a cellist, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Douglas Cameron, then in Zurich with Emanuel Feuermann. Her debut recital was in 1934 at the Wigmore Hall and her BBC Proms debut a year later, playing Beethoven's Triple Concerto. During the 1930s she was a member of the Grinke Trio (with violinist Frederick Grinke and pianist Dorothy Manley) and the New English String Quartet. She later formed the Loveridge-Martin-Hooton Trio with pianist Iris  Loveridge and her husband, the violinist David Martin. It was active between 1956 and 1976. Hooton became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1964 and also gave private lessons in Suffolk and Sheffield. The Academy holds a portrait of her by Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn, painted in 1936. It is hanging in the Duke's Hall. Her premiere performances included: Gordon Jacob's Divertimento for Unaccompanied Cello (1934) which Jacob dedicated to her; Frank Bridge's "Oration" on 18 January 1936, after the work had been turned down by Felix Salmond and by Guilhermina Suggia; and William  Busch's Cello Concerto on 13 August 1943 at the Proms. With Harriet Cohen she premiered Arnold Bax's "Legend-Sonata" in F sharp minor for cello and piano in 1943: the work is dedicated to her. Hooton also premiered the Gordon Jacobs Cello Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall in 1955, Kenneth Leighton's Cello Concerto at the Cheltenham Festival in 1956, and Alan Bush's "Concert Suite" at the Royal Albert Hall the same year. She recorded with Decca from the late 1930s and was a frequent broadcaster. Her last public performance was in 1978. In 1981 she  commissioned Gordon Jacob to write a Cello Octet for her students at the Royal Academy. She was appointed OBE in 1982. Following her death the Academy established the annual David Martin/Florence Hooton Concerto Prize in her memory. Hooton married David Martin in 1938. They lived in Ickenham in Middlesex at 34, Thornhill Road. There were two daughters. Martin died in 1982.