Biography

Freda Swain was born at Portsmouth

Portsmouth

Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. She studied with Dora Matthay and at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

 with Stanford and Arthur Alexander. She earned awards including the Sullivan Prize in 1921.

In 1924 Swain began teaching at the Royal Academy, and in 1936 she founded the British Music Movement to help promote the efforts of young composers and artists. Swain married Arthur Alexander in 1921, and before World War II, the couple toured South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, lecturing, broadcasting and performing recitals.

Works

Swain composed a one-act opera Second Chance, but never finished a second opera, The Shadowy Waters. She also composed a piano concerto, a concertino for piano and strings and other orchestral pieces, songs and song cycles, choral and church music, two string quartets, a Suite for Six Trumpets, and a number of other chamber and instrumental pieces.

Selected works include:

• Second Chance, (opera) premiered at Bath in 1955
• Clarinet Concerto
• A Pastoral Fantasy, tone poem for violin and orchestra
• The Harp of Angus
• Breathe on Me, Breath of God
• A Gaelic Prayer
• A Country Pastoral (1957)
• The Windmill, for piano
• Mimosa
• The Lonely Dove
• The Sea
• Fantasy Suite for Oboe and Piano
• Sonatina
• Scherzo for three pianos
• Sonata in F Minor
• Sonatas for violin in C Minor
• Sonata for violin in B Minor, subtitled The River
• Cello Sonata in C
• English Reel for viola
• Song at Evening for viola
• Danse Barbare for violin and cello
• The Willow Tree (1948) for clarinet and piano
• Contrasts (1953) for clarinet and piano

Songs:

• Blessing
• Experience
• The Lark on Portsdown
• The Green Lad From Donegal
• Winter Field