Margaret Sutherland

Australian composer Margaret Ada Sutherland was born in Adelaide on 20 November 1897 into a well-connected Scottish-Australian family. She studied composition with Edward Goll in Australia and Arnold Bax in England.

One of her best known pieces is the Shaw Neilson setting 'In the Dim Counties' for voice and piano, from Five Songs. She also wrote a chamber opera The Young Kabbarli to a libretto by Maie Casey, the symphony The Four Temperaments, the symphonic poem Haunted Hills, several concertos and much chamber music.

Margaret Sutherland's composing career came to an end in 1969 when she suffered a stroke, but she lived on until the age of eighty-six, dying in Melbourne on 12 August 1984.

 

A selection of articles about Margaret Sutherland

Echoes of Oblivion by Robert McCarney - More corn than gold