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Artist
Esther Rofe
3+ albums
about
Esther Rofe was born in Melbourne in 1904 and studied with Alberto Zelman jnr, Fritz Hart and A.E. Floyd. A talented violinist and pianist, she worked as an accompanist, and performed with small ensembles and the original Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In the early 1930s Esther enrolled at the Royal College of Music and studied with, amongst others, Gordon Jacob, Ralph Vaughan Williams and R.O. Morris. She was there at the same time as Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Miriam Hyde, John Tallis, and later with Dulcie Holland. It was at the College that she committed herself to composition. Rofe returned to Australia at the outbreak of World War II worked at the ABC and then in the Colegate-Palmolive Radio Unit in Sydney for a five-year stint. She had the uncanny ability to be able move easily between serious composition and the needs of the commercial environment . In the Unit she composed, arranged, conducted and organised the musicians' calls. She found it tiring work as nearly every musical item was live to air. The ballets in which she wrote the music proved to be mainstays with either the Borovansky Ballet (Sea Legend and Terra Australis) or the Ballet Guild of Victoria (L'Amour Enchantee (later The Lake), and Mathinna). In the 1960s, 70s and 80s Esther continued to compose but the motivation was lessened by the lack of performance opportunities. Like so many of her generation she was distanced by her younger colleagues for being out step with newer compositional trends. However,