MACEWAN, Désirée

Désirée MacEwan was a British composer and pianist.

She was born in Clapham, and entered the Royal Academy of Music at the age of fourteen. Her teacher, the acclaimed Tobias Matthay, always thought very highly of her and appointed her to the staff of his school (the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School) before she had even graduated from the Academy. He was particularly impressed with her ideas concerning children’s pedagogy. He also regularly selected her to perform in recordings for his label the AFMC (Anglo-French Music Company) where he admired the extreme clarity and individualization of voices in her performances.

There is little concrete information about Désirée MacEwan's compositions. She was the recepient of the Josephine Troup [for more information see https://donne-uk.org/author/troup-emily-josephine] Scholarship while at RAM, an award for female students studying orchestral composition.
We also know that her piece ‘Clam-Var’ for orchestra was premiered by Henry Wood for the BBC Proms in 1921.
Her only published work seems to be "Summertime Farcus" for piano solo, which Scowcroft suggests is likely to have been written with children in mind given the titles of its individual movements: "July", "Peaseblossom Dances", "To An Old Doll" and "The Dream Fairy".