When Gillian Wills was studying classical piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London, her professor was angered by her interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 17, The Tempest. Decades later, she vividly remembers the incident.

“He yelled at me. I stood up to leave and had almost reached the door when he picked up a piano stool and threw it at me. I thought, ‘One day, I’ll put that in a book.’ That might have been my starting point,” she tells Limelight.

Gillian Wills. Photo © Mostyn Bramley-Moore

Wills is referring to her decision to start writing her novel Big Music, which centres on Beatrice, nicknamed Beat, and the challenges she faces when she is appointed Dean of Turalong Music School.

“Fine-tuning this institution is like playing a cracked violin with broken strings. She’s determined to revive the school’s reputation despite gender bias, staff conflict, fraud, betrayal, a famous composer’s ghost and a predatory university,” reads the synopsis.

The book has received warm praise with classical pianist Piers Lane saying it “pulses with experience of the music world, fired by an intriguing imagination,”...