Sylvia Waddilove

Sylvia H. Waddilove was born in 1911 in Yorkshire, England, into an aristocratic British family, the daughter of Lady Alice Waddilove, O.B.E., who was herself devoted to charitable causes, notably the British Red Cross. A music lover rather than a musician, she spent many years at Villeneuve, on the Vaud Riviera, where she owned a lakeside property, the Clos du Verger. She never married, and decided that after her death this property would serve not private use but music: she set aside part of her estate to create a foundation bearing her name, meant to give young musicians of the region a place to develop their art. She died in 2001. Her will gave rise to two distinct structures: the Fondation Sylvia Waddilove, in Villeneuve, registered with the Vaud commercial register in 2006, which makes her property available to the Conservatoire de Montreux; and the Sylvia Waddilove Foundation UK, registered the same year in Britain, which pursues an entirely different mission — funding, worldwide, organic farming, the arts, medical research and the training of young people. Ten years after her death, in 2011, the conversion of her house into a music centre paid tribute to her generosity, a hundred years after her birth.