In the Beginning
In the Beginning
Flavia started her first piano lessons at the age of four years with her mother, Mrs. Lydia de Souza, and sat for her first piano examination, Grade Two of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) at the age of five.
At the age of seven, she voluntarily began taking lessons in the violin. Her interest in music continued alongside her school studies without any interruption of the latter.
Playing in a student orchestra founded and conducted by Mr. Harold Ashcroft

1958: During a holiday trip to Kenya in East Africa, Flavia gave her first public performance in Nairobi. However, nothing was recorded by way of program of this concert because her family never considered her a prodigy even though she was only eight years old.

Sometime the following year, back home in Kuala Lumpur, there was a mixed music competition held at the local Town Hall for which Flavia’s school entered her. She won the First Prize for her performance of a Beethoven Sonata. Unfortunately, there is, again, no printed reference regarding this competition, nor any subsequent competitions held during the following years, for all of which Flavia won various prizes. The outcome of these public appearances were her first recordings for Radio Malaya on both the English and Malay networks.
1965: Flavia took the final music examination, the Performer’s Licentiate of the (London) Royal Schools of Music, LRSM, and at the age of sixteen created a stir in Kuala Lumpur by being the youngest candidate to attempt the Performer’s LRSM and the only successful one that year. She also did the Grade Seven violin examination at the same time and passed it with Distinction. The British Board examiners, Messrs. Nash and Dawkes who heard her at both examinations, immediately offered her a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London. However, as Flavia still had one more year of studies at school, the offer to study music in London, together with the scholarship, was put on hold.
A recital at The British High Commissioner’s Residence in Kuala Lumpur.
1966: On account of these excellent results obtained at the LRSM Performer’s examination, Flavia was offered a place to study music at the NorthWestern University in the U.S.A. but again this was declined and put on hold because of her last year at school.
A recital at The British High Commissioner’s Residence in Kuala Lumpur.
1966: On account of these excellent results obtained at the LRSM Performer’s examination, Flavia was offered a place to study music at the NorthWestern University in the U.S.A. but again this was declined and put on hold because of her last year at school.


1967: While studying French at the Alliance Francaise in Kuala Lumpur, the then French Ambassador to Malaysia, Monsieur Pierre Anthonioz, came to know of Flavia’s success at the LRSM examination and of her two offers to study music in London and in the U.S.A. He was so impressed that after a concert at his residence, he arranged for her to study for a year in France. Hence, Flavia was awarded her first French Government Scholarship and she left for Paris in October of the same year, 1967. 


Back To Top
Share by: