Peers Coetmore

Peers Coetmore was an English cellist. She spent her early years in Spilsby in Lincolnshire.

Early life

Peers was born Kathleen Peers Coetmore Jones. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and took lessons from Maurice Eisenberg, Emanuel Feuermann and Maurice Maréchal. In the 1930s her address was The Studio, 159a Mill Lane, London NW6.

She toured England, Eire, Germany, Holland, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and performed with the BBC, Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras. Among her students was Doreen Carwithen.
In 1945 she married the composer E.J. Moeran and was the dedicatee of his Cello Concerto and his Cello Sonata. She gave the premiere performance of both these works: the Cello Concerto on 25 November 1945 in Dublin, and the Sonata on May 1947, also in Dublin, with the pianist Charles Lynch. Her recordings of both works are available on CD on the Lyrita imprint . There is also a surviving recording of her live performance of the Cello Concerto from People’s Palace, Mile End, broadcast on 10 April 1946.
After Moeran's death in 1950, she married Walter Knott and lived in Melbourne, Australia, where she taught at the Victorian College of the Arts. She died in July 1976. In her will, she made a bequest of $20,000 to the College:
The first recipient of this Scholarship was Jacqueline Johnson.
She also bequeathed to the College her 1723 Goffriller cello and some of Moeran's unpublished musical scores, including his unfinished Second Symphony in E-flat.
After her death, Walter Knott arranged for Wesley College, Melbourne to name its orchestra the Coetmore Orchestra in her honour. Walter Knott was particularly associated with the college and bequeathed his own estate to it.