Madeleine Dring

Madeleine Dring: Lady Composer is a biography that examines the British composer’s life and music, supported by extensive archival research and primary sources. With London at its center, the story of Dring’s life follows her through formal training in the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music, the horrors of World War II, the lively atmosphere of revues in the West End, the lack of recognition during her final years, and her premature death from a brain aneurysm at the age of fifty-three. Her contributions to the diverse musical worlds of popular song, serious music, radio, and television are surveyed, with attention to the qualities that characterize her distinctive musical style. The narrative arc is compelling: education as a classical composer, success on the popular stage, return to “serious” composition, and death when her art was at the highest level. An underlying theme is the encouragement and success Dring experienced in a profession that is typically the domain of men. Her achievement as a composer is due to the excellence of her music, which is increasingly being appreciated for its imagination and sophistication, as evidenced by numerous performances and recordings.

A “great achievement on behalf of this wonderful musician!”
—Joseph Horovitz, Royal College of Music

“Wanda Brister and Jay Rosenblatt have done a meticulous job bringing Dring’s remarkable story to life… This welcome new biography sheds light on an iconoclastic composer’s brilliant musical mind, and compels us to reconsider her compositional output. The lady composer Madeleine Dring certainly deserves our greater attention.”
—Stephen Caplan, The Double Reed

“This thoroughly researched collaboration is a valuable addition to the literature about Madeleine Dring.”
—Debra Greschner, Journal of Singing