Miriam Hyde

Miriam Beatrice Hyde AO, OBE (15 January 1913 – 11 January 2005) was an Australian composer, pianist, music educator and poet.

She composed over 150 works for piano, 50 songs, other instrumental and orchestral works and performed as a concert pianist with eminent conductors including Sir Malcolm Sargent, Constant Lambert, Georg Schnéevoigt, Sir Bernard Heinze and Geoffrey Simon. She also had books of poetry published, and wrote an autobiography.

Miriam Hyde was born in Adelaide in 1913. Music was an important part of her family life: her mother, Muriel, played and taught piano; her aunt, Clarice Gmeiner, played violin, viola and harp with the South Australian Symphony Orchestra; and her younger sister, Pauline, played violin and sang. Her early music lessons were provided by her mother, but in 1925 she won a scholarship to attend the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide.

After graduating with her Bachelor of Music degree in 1931, she won an Elder Scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, which she attended from 1932 to 1935. Her teachers were R. O. Morris and Gordon Jacob for composition, and Howard Hadley and Arthur Benjamin for piano. She won several composition prizes while at the College, including the Cobbett Prize. However, during this time she also suffered a nervous collapse, and her mother went to England to be with her.

Hyde gave her first London recital at Holland Park in 1933, and in 1934 her Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat minor was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leslie Heward with her as soloist. In 1935, she performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 under Malcolm Sargent, and her own Piano Concerto No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert. She saw many of the great musicians of the time, including Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Yehudi Menuhin and Elisabeth Schumann.

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