Edwin York Bowen was born in London in 1884, the youngest son of the owner of the Whisky distillers Bowen & McKechnie. He made his musical debut when he was 8 as the soloist in a Dussek piano concerto. At the age of 14 he won the Erard Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied the piano with Tobias Matthay, and composition with Frederick Corder. As a student he won many important prizes for both piano playing and composition, and when he left the Academy he had also won the Med...