Mirrie Hill
Mirrie Hill (1 December 1889 – 1 May 1986) was an Australian composer.
Life
Mirrie Irma Jaffa Solomon was born in Randwick, Sydney on 1 December 1889,[1] and showed an early talent for music and pitch. She studied piano with an aunt, and at age 13 with Josef Kretschmann and later with Laurence Godfrey-Smith. She studied composition with Ernest Truman and composer Alfred Hill, and won a scholarship to study composition at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music.
After completing her studies, she took a position teaching harmony and aural culture at the Conservatorium. She married Alfred Hill in 1921, and became step-mother to the three children of his first marriage (Isolde, Tristan and Elsa).[2] After his death in 1960, she established the annual Alfred Hill Award for a composition student at the Conservatorium.
She died in St Leonards, Sydney in 1986.[3] [4]
Works
Hill composed for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choral pieces, film scores, songs and solo instrumental works. She often incorporated Aboriginal themes and traditional Jewish melodies. Selected works include:
- Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra (1914)
- The Leafy Lanes of Kent (1950)
- Three miniature pieces for the piano
- Three Aboriginal Dances (Brolga, The Kunkarankara Women, Nalda of the Echo) (1950)
- Arnhem Land symphony (1954)
Her works have been recorded and issued on CD, including:
- Dance of the Wild Men - Early 20th Century Australian Piano Music Artworks
References
- ↑ Australian Dictionary of Biography: Mirrie Hill
- ↑ Australian Dictionary of Biography: Alfred Hill
- ↑ "Mirrie Hill (1892-1986)". Retrieved 21 December 2010.
- ↑ Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (1994). The Norton/Grove dictionary of women composers (Digitized online by GoogleBooks). Retrieved 4 October 2010.
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