Dunedin-born Ian James (Eli) Gray-Smith was a pianist, an artist and a teacher.
Mr Gray-Smith was born in 1927 and attended Otago Boys’ High School, but his talent soon took him around the world. He is remembered for his skill, knowledge, flair and generosity.
In an autobiographical account supplied by a family member, Mr Gray-Smith said his first piano teacher, "Miss Lena", enticed him to play with lollies at the end of the piano.
"Looking back at my life, I cannot remember a day without music," he wrote.
At the age of 14, he learned of a ballet teacher in Dunedin who needed a pianist.
The teenager offered his talents and "began a love affair which has lasted all my life".
He accompanied Royal Academy of Dance classes and later competitions in the lower South Island. When he was 21, he travelled to Sydney to play for the best dance teachers of the time and stayed for five years.
His career as a young man took him to Africa, Greece, Rome and London where he worked for the Royal Academy of Arts.
He moved to Canada where he continued to work with the best performers, first in Vancouver and then at the Royal Toronto Conservatory.
And then he hit New York. There, his talents saw him almost immediately accepted.
Mr Gray-Smith opened a phone book and because "I always start at the top" called the New York City Ballet Studio at Carnegie Hall and asked to speak to the artistic director, George Balanchine, one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century.
He was "reluctantly" put through when he offered to play his first class for free.
Mr Gray-Smith impressed Mr Balanchine and got the job.
And he recalled with some pride composer Igor Stravinsky coming in to watch the classes and rehearsals he accompanied.
Mr Gray-Smith soon moved to San Francisco and later Chicago where he continued his career. In the 1960s, he decided to return to New Zealand for six months "but somehow that grew into years".
He started a music school, but soon began working for the Royal Academy of Dance in an official capacity. His work with the royal academy lasted 23 years and took him to South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and Canada.
In the 1970s Mr Gray-Smith was a pianist on the children’s television programme Playschool for eight years.
As well as painting and weaving, Mr Gray Smith studied the classical Japanese art of arranging flowers, ikebana, becoming a teacher, and was appointed a director of the Dunedin Branch of the Sogetsu School of ikebana in 1994.
In later life he travelled New Zealand accompanying NZ Film Archive silent films.
And he became a sought-after Dunedin piano teacher for many years.
Upon his death, former Royal Academy examiner Deirdre Tarrant told the Academy he was fondly remembered by examiners of his time who loved his "music, magic and wit".
Dunedin St Cecilia teacher and international examiner Elizabeth Bouman said Mr Gray-Smith taught hundreds of pupils in Dunedin over the years. He was a "loved and treasured" colleague of Dunedin’s classical music community and was dearly missed.
"He's been a wonderful man of music.
"He always encouraged young teachers, and you always learned something from him."
Former pupil Emmanuel Keane studied piano with Mr Gray-Smith from the age of 5 and, as a 17-year-old, became the youngest person to be awarded a fellowship from the St Cecilia School of Music, two years ago.
"He was a wonderful man," Mr Keane said. "He really inspired me, and he was very motivating.
"He encouraged me to keep on playing the piano, which I'm really thankful for.
"Because I still love it very much.
"He always loved music, he loved teaching, and he loved people as well.
"Everyone knew Eli was a really kind and caring man that always looked out for others, in his own way."
After Mr Gray-Smith’s death former Balclutha and Dunedin resident Brent Coutts published a limited edition book that focused on Mr Gray-Smith’s private life and life as a ceramicist.
Eschewing pots or bowls, Mr Gray-Smith produced reliefs and sculptures.
His first solo show was in the foyer of Otago Museum in 1968.
"Reviewers described the exhibition as controversial, and certainly it was unlike the ceramic exhibitions that had been shown in Dunedin up until that time," Mr Coutts wrote. "Experimentation was at the heart of [Mr] Gray-Smith’s art practice."
He set up a pottery at the old schoolhouse at Whare Flat — and officially opened Whare Flat Potteries in 1971, Mr Coutts said. He gave up that pottery in 1974, as he once again travelled for music, but opened a new one at Lawrence, at the Hitching Post, in 1975.
After his time overseas at the Royal Academy he settled in Auckland and had a crib on Waiheke Island, before returning to Dunedin. In 2021, at the age of 94, he sold his house in Maori Hill and moved into an apartment.
Mr Gray-Smith died peacefully in Dunedin at the age of 96 on April 7 this year.
He was the dearly loved brother of the late Doreen Thomson and the late Muriel McAuliffe. He was the loved uncle of nephews Stephen and Graeme Thomson, Robert, Craig and Peter McAuliffe and Denise Randall as well as many great-nephews and great-nieces. — Hamish MacLean.
