Early Life
Born in Guelph, Ontario, he studied violin at eight and began playing harmonica at aged eleven as a member of his father's band. In 1935 the family moved to London. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was a student at the Leipzig Conservatory. Reilly was arrested and interned for the duration of the war in prisoner of war camps. However it was there that he developed his virtuosity on the harmonica, basing his ideas of phrasing and interpretation on the playing of Jascha Heifetz.
Read more about this topic: Tommy Reilly
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.”
—Henry Reed (1914–1986)
“... scepticism ... can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill ...”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)