Miriam Hyde AO OBE (1913-2005), composer, recitalist, teacher, examiner, poet, lecturer and writer of numerous articles for music journals, studied first with her mother and then with William Silver at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide. She graduated as Mus.Bac. in 1931 and won the Elder Scholarship to the Royal College of Music, London. There she won three composition prizes and performed her two piano concerti with major London orchestras. Returning to Adelaide in 1936, Hyde wrote much of the orchestral music for the pageant Heritage, produced in the Tivoli Theatre. Of this music her Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda, an overture to one of the scenes, has become well-known as an independent piece in various arrangements. Also in that year her Adelaide Overture was first performed and conducted by Malcolm Sargent. Moving permanently to Sydney, she taught for several years at Kambala School, except for a period during the war, when her husband was a prisoner in Germany and she returned to Adelaide, her anxiety giving rise to her dramatic Piano Sonata in g minor. Hyde's works include many for piano, from preliminary to diploma standards, more than fifty songs, chamber music, sonatas for viola, clarinet and flute, four overtures and other orchestral works. She performed concerti with all the major Australian orchestras (except Brisbane), and with conductors of eminence, including Sir Malcolm Sargent, Constant Lambert, Georg Schneevoigt, Sir Bernard Heinze, Dr Edgar Bainton, Joseph Post, and Geoffrey Simon, with whom, in 1975, she recorded her two concerti with the ABC's West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Hyde received a great number of honours including an honorary doctorate, and through her eighties and nineties in Sydney she was accorded many tributes and dedicated music performances. She continued performing through the 1990s. Her autobiography, Complete Accord, was published in 1991.
