Biography
Following her death, performances of Madeleine Dring’s compositions remained scarce for decades until fresh interest emerged during the 21st century. Her distinctive idiom blended late Romanticism, neoclassicism, popular music, and jazz.
Born September 7, 1923, in the London suburb of Harringay, Dring spent most of her childhood in Streatham. Early signs of musical promise earned her entry at age ten into the junior division of the Royal College of Music. Although she played both violin and piano and received scholarship offers for each, she selected the violin. She continued piano lessons, joined youth theater productions, and developed an interest in composition. Her teachers included Stanley Drummond Wolff, Leslie Fly, and Sir Percy Buck. Advancing to the senior division at the Royal College of Music, she worked with Herbert Howells and occasionally Ralph Vaughan Williams. By the late 1930s she had completed substantial pieces, among them the Fantasy Sonata in One Movement, which stayed unpublished until 1948 and drew limited notice despite its originality. She eventually dropped her violin studies yet pursued training in mime, drama, and singing. Theater music became a focus, leading her to score productions for British radio and, later, television. In 1947 she married London Symphony Orchestra oboist Roger Lord, for whom she created numerous chamber works featuring the oboe; the couple had one son, Jeremy.
Despite her studies with Howells and Vaughan Williams, their influence on Dring remained minimal. She held a deep admiration for Rachmaninov and collected extensive volumes of his scores. Poulenc’s songs likewise appealed to her, shaping the accompaniments in her own vocal works, many of which she performed herself. Pieces such as I HATE Music frequently display sharp wit. Her output encompassed chamber music, two ballets, and the opera Cupboard Love, whose premiere took place at Florida State University in 2018. She largely avoided extended instrumental forms. She also wrote musical revues, allowing popular idioms to surface in certain classical pieces, including the Caribbean Dance and West Indian Dance for piano. Dring died of a cerebral hemorrhage in London on March 26, 1977. In subsequent years her music attracted scant attention, prompting her husband to fund the biography Madeleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life by Ro Hancock-Child in hopes of increasing its visibility. By the early 2020s, more than 90 of her compositions had been recorded.
Born September 7, 1923, in the London suburb of Harringay, Dring spent most of her childhood in Streatham. Early signs of musical promise earned her entry at age ten into the junior division of the Royal College of Music. Although she played both violin and piano and received scholarship offers for each, she selected the violin. She continued piano lessons, joined youth theater productions, and developed an interest in composition. Her teachers included Stanley Drummond Wolff, Leslie Fly, and Sir Percy Buck. Advancing to the senior division at the Royal College of Music, she worked with Herbert Howells and occasionally Ralph Vaughan Williams. By the late 1930s she had completed substantial pieces, among them the Fantasy Sonata in One Movement, which stayed unpublished until 1948 and drew limited notice despite its originality. She eventually dropped her violin studies yet pursued training in mime, drama, and singing. Theater music became a focus, leading her to score productions for British radio and, later, television. In 1947 she married London Symphony Orchestra oboist Roger Lord, for whom she created numerous chamber works featuring the oboe; the couple had one son, Jeremy.
Despite her studies with Howells and Vaughan Williams, their influence on Dring remained minimal. She held a deep admiration for Rachmaninov and collected extensive volumes of his scores. Poulenc’s songs likewise appealed to her, shaping the accompaniments in her own vocal works, many of which she performed herself. Pieces such as I HATE Music frequently display sharp wit. Her output encompassed chamber music, two ballets, and the opera Cupboard Love, whose premiere took place at Florida State University in 2018. She largely avoided extended instrumental forms. She also wrote musical revues, allowing popular idioms to surface in certain classical pieces, including the Caribbean Dance and West Indian Dance for piano. Dring died of a cerebral hemorrhage in London on March 26, 1977. In subsequent years her music attracted scant attention, prompting her husband to fund the biography Madeleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life by Ro Hancock-Child in hopes of increasing its visibility. By the early 2020s, more than 90 of her compositions had been recorded.