Over seven decades, Liz Sturrock contributed richly to the musical and cultural life of Dundee and Angus.
She may be remembered latterly for leading Liz Sturrock Singers but her talents had been sought out since childhood.
In the post-war years she was recognised as an exceptional classical pianist and was invited to play Grieg’s Little Bird on BBC’s Children’s Hour, broadcast from Coldside Library, Dundee.
Liz, who has died aged 84, knew from a very young age that she wanted to be a music teacher and she achieved that and more.
She taught at Angus primaries, Forfar Academy and became assistant principal of music at Dundee High School.
Elizabeth Elspeth Sturrock was born in June 1938 to Jim and Mina Mollison of Kenmore Terrace, Dundee.
She had a brother, Hamish, who was 11 years older and she attended Rockwell primary school.
Always known as Liz, she started piano lessons at a very early age. Music was in the family; her mother was a singer and sang in church cantatas and her brother was an accomplished jazz pianist.
Cancer took Liz’s father when she was only nine and Liz had to grow up quickly. Her mother had to go out to work while Liz took care of housework and did the shopping.
Awards
Her schooling continued at Harris Academy where she won the Leng Medal for singing, like her mother before her, and the Nora Leggat prize for the highest distinction mark in Grade 8 piano.
She played Casilda in the school production of The Gondoliers, was Dux of music, and in her final year was captain of Kinloch house which won the prize for the best house that year.
Outside school she was a patrol leader in the Girl Guides and a keen member of Dundee Literary Society.
After leaving the Harris she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Glasgow where piano was her first subject. In addition, she studied singing and played the cello. She won prizes for student of the year, and, having gained her Diploma in Musical Education, undertook teacher training in Dundee.
She married David Sturrock, a teacher, in 1961.
Communicating her love of music to successive generations of schoolchildren was Liz’s passion and she embarked on this journey as a peripatetic teacher around the primary and secondary schools in Angus.
Choirs
She also taught at Stobswell Girls’ School, Dundee, where she learnt a great deal from Anne Robertson on how to train and run choirs. During this time she was also the accompanist for the Stobswell Ladies’ Choir.
By this time, family life with two young sons, Jeremy and Nigel, was based in Forfar where Liz became a member of Forfar Operatic Society, taking leads in productions of Desert Song, Oklahoma and New Moon.
When David became headteacher at Tealing, the family moved to the rural setting of Tealing school house. Many long walks were enjoyed as a family with the black labs, Jet, then Gyp, around the country roads and into the Sidlaw hills.
Liz became a member of Dundee Choral Union and progressed in her teaching career, taking up the post of music teacher at Forfar Academy.
There she ran a folk group, which paid frequent visits to homes for the elderly, to give free concerts and entertain residents.
In 1979 her mother died just short of her 80th birthday, and the family moved back to Dundee.
By this point Liz was working as assistant principal of music at Dundee High School.
Stage productions
She taught choirs, started another folk group and helped with the many school operas.
Just before her retirement in 1989 she played a key role in staging a production of The Boyfriend, with Sandy Smith as producer and in collaboration with her colleagues Ron Cochrane and Helen Boyle. The show was a great success and she felt it was a fitting culmination to her teaching career.
Liz joined Wallacetown Church in Dundee around 1970 and was a very active member of the Guild there, holding the office of president several times, before becoming council president in Dundee and a member of the executive committee of the Guild nationally.
When Wallacetown became Trinity Church, Liz became an elder in 1990 and headed up the education and communications committee and the church library.
Illness would become a constant factor in her life but Liz never let it hold her back and faced her tribulations with positivity.
Diagnoses of Type 1 diabetes and an overactive thyroid in 1979 were followed by recurrent heart problems. In 1986 she had to undergo a triple heart -bypass operation in Glasgow Royal infirmary but recovered quickly and vowed not to be defined by her ill health.
Organist
Liz threw herself into wider work for the church including sitting on the presbyterial council while also finding time for music, playing the organ for Sunday services running the church choir and forming the Liz Sturrock Singers.
The singers performed all over Dundee and district for many years, undertaking fundraising concerts for the diabetes centre at Ninewells Hospital as well as funding diabetes research.
During this time, Liz started to write music for the choir, encouraged by her good friend Pat Scott, who wrote the song lyrics. In 1991 they were proud winners of the National Carol competition for, The Best Gift of All.
Her sons Jeremy and Nigel, said: “Mum was always there for us when we needed her and we owe our own lifelong love of music to her. She was a loving and inspirational gran to her four granddaughters and a great friend to many”.
You can read the family’s announcement here.
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