Ethel Mary Boyce (5 October 1863 – 3 March 1936) was an English composer, pianist and teacher. Boyce was born and resided in

Chertsey Chertsey is a town in the Borough of Runnymede, Surrey, England, southwest of central London. It grew up around Chertsey Abbey, founded in AD 666 by Earconwald, St Erkenwald, and gained a municipal charter, market charter from Henry I of Engla ...

, Surrey, daughter of Justice of the peace George Boyce (1832–1914). She studied piano at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

with

Walter Cecil Macfarren Walter Cecil Macfarren (28 August 1826 – 20 September 1905) was an English pianist, composer and conductor, and a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music. His students included Stewart Macpherson, Tobias Matthay and Henry Wood. Early life Macfar ...

and composition with

Francis William Davenport Francis William Davenport (9 April 1847, Wilderslowe, near Derby - 1 April, 1925, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Scarborough) was an English people, English musician and composer. In 1879 was appointed professor, at the Royal Academy of Music. Th ...

. The prizes she won include the

Cipriani Potter Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter (3 October 1792 – 26 September 1871) was an English musician. He was a composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. After an early career as a performer and composer, he was a teacher in the Royal Academy of Musi ...

Exhibition Prize and the

Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. B ...

Prize for piano playing (both in 1866) and the Charles Lucas Medal for composition in 1889. In 1890 she was appointed associate of the Royal Academy, becoming a composition teacher in 1891, when she gave up public performances as a pianist. Boyce was at one time the fiancée of

Edward German Sir Edward German (born German Edward Jones; 17 February 1862 – 11 November 1936) was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur S ...

, but the engagement was broken off and German never married. She played piano duets with

Dora Bright Dora Estella Knatchbull (née Bright; 16 August 1862 – 16 November 1951) was a British composer and pianist. She composed works for orchestra, keyboard and voice, and music for opera and ballet, including ballets for performance by the dancer ...

, including a concert performance of Bright's ''Variations on an Original Theme of Sir G. A. Macfarren'', named for

George Alexander Macfarren Sir George Alexander Macfarren (2 March 181331 October 1887) was an English composer and musicologist. Life George Alexander Macfarren was born in London on 2 March 1813 to George Macfarren, a dancing-master, dramatic author and journalist, wh ...

, their teacher's brother. Her compositions include an orchestral March in E (1889), the ''Introduction and Rondo'' for piano, violin and cello (which won her the Lucas prize, also in 1889), eight pieces for violin and piano (published by Novello) and various miniatures for piano, including ''A Book of Fancies'', ''To Phylis'' (four short pieces), ''The Silver Thames'' (three piano pieces published by Augener in 1922), the Valse in F (published by Ashdown) and ''Songs and Dances for the Piano'' (published by Curwen). She also wrote children's piano music, songs and choral works including several cantatas with medieval subjects: ''The Lay of the Brown Rosary'' (1890), setting

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime and frequently anthologised after her death. Her work receiv ...

, ''Young Lochinvar'' (1891), setting

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

, and ''The Sands of Corriemie'' for female voices (1895), with both libretto and music by the composer.Cohen, Aaron I. ''International Encyclopedia of Women Composers'' (1987), p. 101

External links

''The Silver Thames'', performed by Erica Sipes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyce, Ethel Mary 1863 births 1936 deaths English composers Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music English women classical composers English classical pianists 20th-century English women composers 19th-century English women composers 19th-century English women 19th-century British women pianists 20th-century English women pianists