Elizabeth Maconchy

Dame Elizabeth Violet Maconchy LeFanu (; 19 March 1907 – 11 November 1994) was an English-Irish composer. She is considered to be one of the finest composers Great Britain and Ireland have produced. Biography Elizabeth Violet Maconchy was born in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, of Irish parents and grew up in England and Ireland. Her family moved to Ireland in 1917, where they lived in Howth, on the east coast. The adolescent Maconchy began her musical studies in Dublin, studying piano with Edith Boxhill, and harmony and counterpoint with John Francis Larchet. Those formative years in Ireland were important for Maconchy who considered herself Irish. Throughout her career she was identified as an Irish composer, or as an English composer with Irish influences, by reviewers and commentators. In 1923, at the age of sixteen, she moved to London to enrol at the Royal College of Music. At the RCM Maconchy studied under Charles Wood and Ralph Vaughan Williams. As a student, Maconchy was awarded the Blumenthal Scholarship in 1927, and the Octavia Scholarship of 1930, which allowed her to continue her studies in Prague. Her first public recognition came on 19 March 1930 with a performance of her