Overture and Beginners Please: An Autobiography in Five Movements

This is a collection of intimate memories of a girl’s childhood in South Africa in the 1930s and 40s. Surrounded by momentous historical events and a family ambitious for her success, Anthya, a child with musical gifts, relates how these influences shape her life and lead her to 1950s England, a concert career and a truly magical love story.

Her story begins with the immigration of her grandparents from Eastern Europe to life in a mining town in South Africa. Anthya’s childhood is dominated by World War II and post-war life in colonial Durban, and she tells vividly of the family, friends and teachers who shape her.

Living and studying in 1950s bomb-damaged London gives her a new, different life, full of music and colourful characters, including her future husband and musical partner, Raymond Cohen.

About the author:
Anthya Cohen, who was born in 1933 in South Africa, is also known as the international pianist Anthya Rael. She has lived in London since 1950. She was married to the violinist Raymond Cohen until his death in 2011 and has two children Gillian, a violinist and Robert a cellist, and four grandsons to whom this book is dedicated.

She studied art in the 1980s which led to exhibitions and sales to private collections.

Her work has been used on CD covers and music magazines. All the illustrations in this book are her work.