Pamela Newling admires the talent of Miriam Hyde 

Miriam Hyde is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed 20th-century pianists and composers. Her long and prolific career started when, as a youngster, she won a scholarship to the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide. In 1932, aged 19, she took up an Elder Overseas Scholarship for three years at the Royal College of Music, London. She continued to perform, compose and educate until her death in 2005 at the age of 92.  

While in London Miriam excelled as a pianist and performed as a soloist with the major London orchestras, including the BBC. Composition was nominally her second study and she composed a wide variety of music: piano solos and duets; concertos and overtures; orchestral and chamber music and choral works.  

Returning to Adelaide in 1936 Miriam wrote much of the incidental music for South Australia’s Centenary pageant, including Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda. Shortly afterwards she settled in Sydney, gave recitals in capital cities and regional centres and broadcast extensively on ABC Radio and 2MBS-FM. She gave concerts for charities, conducted workshops in country towns for students preparing for piano examinations and gave master classes featuring her own compositions. 

Her 80th birthday was celebrated with recitals in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Ingham, featuring two monumental sonatas – Sonata in F minor by Brahms and Sonata in B minor by Liszt. She was a soloist in her Piano Concerto no 2 with the Sydney Symphony. She continued to perform from memory. 

In 1997, aged 84, she travelled to London to give a concert of her major works at the Royal College of Music, some 62 years after she had studied there. In that same year the eminent pianist James Muir, with his Sydney Chamber Players, paid Miriam a great compliment by recording much of her unpublished chamber music on two CDs. 

In later years, far from retiring, she performed with the Strathfield Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dr Solomon Bard, her Fantasy Romantic, and, at the age of 89, her Piano Concerto no 2 in C# minor. 

On Miriam’s 90th birthday the ABC presented a celebratory concert at the Eugene Goosens Hall, with performances by outstanding musicians of some of her piano solos, chamber works and songs.