Celebrated Winnipeg pianist and teacher looks back on career highlights as she turns 100

She’s performed for British royalty and radio, rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s greatest classical luminaries, taught scores of aspiring musicians since the age of 12 and once tickled the ivories for silent movies as a teenager growing up in the city’s West End.

Winnipeg’s grande dame and beloved musical matriarch, pianist and teacher Thelma Wilson, celebrates her 100th birthday on April 12. Members of her equally accomplished clan that include four children, nine grandchildren and 10 great-great-grandchildren are flocking here from across Canada, the U.S., Europe and Iceland to help mark the auspicious occasion.

“I don’t know, but since there’s so much to-do about my 100th birthday, I’m beginning to think it’s rather important,” the humble musician with a dignified, regal bearing, says at a local seniors’ residence where she has lived for the past two-and-a-half years.

Music has been a leitmotif running throughout her life for nearly a century, her treasured grand piano only an arm’s length or two away in her living room.