The following is extracted from Volume I of the 1986 edition of South African Music Encyclopedia (J.P. Malan, ISBN 0 86965 586 8
ALBINA BINI, soprano and pianist, born 11 July 1899 in Florence (Italy), died on 24 March 1998 in San Gimignano, Italy
Albina Bini was brought to South Africa in 1904 when her parents immigrated, and received her initial musical training at the St Mary's Convent School in Cape Town. As an 11-year-old schoolgirl, she was engaged to play piano at the Claremont Bioscope every night, for a monthly fee of three golden sovereigns (very little in today's terms). At the age of 15 she began serious pianoforte study under Madame Niay Darroll, a primary founder of the South African College of Music (SACM), winning contests and gold medals at Eisteddfodau. She was in demand at War Relief Concerts during the First World War.
After obtaining her teachers' and performers' licentiates at the SACM, she taught pianoforte privately and made her debut as a concert pianist with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra. She has since become well-known both as a pianist and as a singer. Noteworthy performances range from piano recitals during the Beethoven Centenary in 1928 to her association with Albert Mallinson, the British composer, of whose songs she gave recitals between 1941 and 1945. In 1947 she sang at the Gala Concert in the Cape Town City Hall when the Municipal Orchestra was conducted by Albert Coates in honour of the Royal family. Apart from her concert work, she has become an examiner and adjudicator of repute in South Africa and the former Rhodesias.
After the inception of the University of Cape Town's Opera School and the appointment of Giuseppe Paganelli (formerly a member of the Sistine Choir in Rome) as lecturer in singing and opera (1926), Albina Bini became his pupil and sang the role of Rosina in his first production, The Barber of Seville - the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra was conducted by WJ Pickerill. This marked the beginning of an operatic career which was continued in Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria, and in the Cape Town Opera House until the building was demolished. The erection of the Little Theatre in 1966 gave Cape Town a new cultural centre. Further performances by the university's Opera Company were then possible and Albina was chosen to sing leading roles in Don Pasquale, La Traviata, Rigoletto, La Boheme, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Nō Play by WH Bell.
After her retirement as a pianista and a singer, she has done much adjudicating in the Cape, Natal, and Transvaal. She also c-operated actively with the opera committee of CAPAB, of which she was a member.
Albina Bini died in San Gimignano, Italy, on 24 March 1998.
