Ethel Scarborough

Frances Ethel Scarborough (10 January 1880 – 9 December 1956) was an English pianist, composer, conductor and later a politician. Among her compositions were a Symphony, three piano concertos, solo piano music, choral music and songs. Education She was born in Crouch End,London, the third of seven children of Walter Scarborough, a timber merchant, and his wife Matilda. She studied piano with Oscar Beringer at the Royal Academy of Music, but shifted her focus to composition and began studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1906, while studying there, Scarborough’s Piano Concerto in C minor was performed in a concert. One newspaper reported that “in the opinion of the principal of the school, the piece is of exceptional merit”. In 1907 and in 1908 she conducted her own compositions at similar student concerts. She later studied composition and orchestration as a private pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford. In 1907 she was awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ silver medal. Composer and conductor A Symphony, dated 1909, is mentioned in some sources but there is no record of any performance. But in 1912 she conducted the Brighton Municipal Orchestra in a performance o