Eventually she worked for Warner Bros. Records, Francis Coppola, and finally Lucasfilm Ltd. There Sally played harpsichord for the first time, thanks to American concert artist Jory Vinikour, her friend and first teacher. He recommended she study with Huguette Dreyfus, which she had the good fortune to do during the last three years before Huguette retired from the superieur regional conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison, remaining a devoted friend until Huguette passed away.
She also taught piano privately and at the British School of Paris on a regular basis. In September she settled in Perugia, Italy. For more information: www. By the s, it had become customary for harpsichordists and organists from all over the world to come to France or the Netherlands to study and perfect their technique with Huguette Dreyfus, Kenneth Gilbert, and Gustav Leonhardt.
She had a great gift for teaching, and with foreign students she could speak English, German, and Italian fluently. But Huguette would say in an interview late in life that her students did not need her as much as she needed them. This was after she had received a first prize in her piano exam at a superior level from the Conservatory of Clermont-Ferrand.
When she entered the Conservatory of Lausanne, she enrolled at the virtuoso level and was allowed to pass her final exams in Clermont-Ferrand when the war ended, winning another first prize. Teaching would remain very important to her all her life, even when she became one of the most important French harpsichordist of her generation.
Pierre Verlet, chief conservator of the Louvre Museum and renowned art historian, wrote:. Please allow me to express our gratitude to you for all you have done for Blandine. You were a mother to her in Siena, from which she returned this morning, delighted. In Blandine was awarded a unanimous first prize from the judges as well as a special prize at the International Competition of Munich. Huguette not only coached her for the competition, but would promote her career in general by introducing her to her own mentors, Alexis Roland-Manuel and Norbert Dufourcq, inviting her to programs on which she was featured, proposing she study with Gerlin in Siena, and inviting her to play on a recording of the Bach concerti in Verlet would write regarding a radio program on which Blandine had appeared with Huguette, after having returned from studying with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University:.
