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8 September 2023 by [post_author_posts_link_outside_loop]

Madeleine Dring 100th anniversary

ARTICLE | 07 SEPTEMBER, 2023

Madeleine Winefride Isabelle Dring (7 September 1923 – 26 March 1977) was an English composer, pianist, singer and actress. Her main influences were her first favourite composer, Sergei Rachmaninov, Francis Poulenc, and jazz-adjacent works by people such as George Gershwin and Cole Porter. A number of her vocal pieces were re-published in the 1990s by Thames Publishing as a number of ‘Dring Volumes’. Many of her original scores are located at Royal College of Music, London, where she studied with Herbert Howells and, occasionally, Ralph Vaughan Williams. Dring was also an actress and was known to have a great sense of humour, writing of herself when asked to present a biography:


“Madeleine Dring was born on the moon and can therefore claim to be a pure-bred lunatic. Arriving on a speck of cosmic dust she came face to face with the human race and has never really recovered”

— Madeleine Dring

https://minervascientifica.co.uk/madeleine-dring/

A short overview of Dring’s life

1923

Born

7th September in Harringay, England.

1933

Junior Royal College of Music

Joined the junior Royal College of Music on scholarship, studying violin and piano.

1937

Continuing her studies

Studied composition with Leslie Fry, Stanley Drummond Wolff, and Sir Percy Buck, and piano with Lilian Gaskell. She later studied with Herbert Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams and stopped her violin lessons after her tutor, W. H. Reed’s death.

1947

Marriage

Married London Symphony Orchestra principal oboist, Roger Lord.

1948

Published

First pieces published with Lengnick and Oxford.

1950

Childbirth

Gave birth to a son.

1977

Death

Died of a cerebral haemorrhage and was buried at Lambeth Cemetery.

“The Drowsy Tidgit”

Fun fact!

Dring often drew cartoons in her manuscripts and notebooks, several of which were published in Ro Hancock-Child’s Madeleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life.

Further reading

Hancock-Child, Ro, Madeleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life, 2nd Edition (UK: Micropress Music, 2009)

Brister, Wanda and Jay Rosenblatt, Madeleine Dring: Lady Composer, (South Carolina: Clemson University Press, 2020)

Listen/watch some of our favourite picks…

Madeleine Dring, ‘I Hate Music’, performed by Sofia Scattarreggia (soprano) and Rebecca Golub (piano) in 2022
Madeleine Dring, ‘Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano’, performed by Jeanne Baxtresser (flute), Joseph Robinson (oboe), and Pedja Muzijevic (piano) in 1968
Madeleine Dring, ‘Business Girls’, performed by Jane Wilkinson (soprano) and Anne Marshall (piano) in 2017

Bring inspiration to the classroom – get our Women Composers’ School Poster today!

Available in 21 countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Filed Under: Article Tagged With: 20th century, Article, Madeleine Dring, Royal College of Music

DONNE365 ARCHIVE

2019-2020

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jennifer Bate says

    30 November 2023 at 5:30 pm

    Thank you for this. I adore Madeleine Dring, especially her string quartet and piano works x

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