Esther Rofe

Esther Rofe (14 March 1904 26 February 2000 ) was an Australian musician and composer.

Biography Esther Rofe was born in 1904 in Melbourne, Australia.

Rofe studied piano with Harold C. Smith and Ada Freeman

During World War II Rofe worked at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and the Colgate-Palmolive Radio Unit in Sydney where she began arranging and composing music. Rofe began composing for ballet in 1943.

The Esther Rofe Songbook was published in Melbourne in December 1999.

Rofe and her sister Edith moved to Southport where Rofe lived and worked for twenty years by the sea.

Rofe never married, but fostered a child, Carden James Rofe. Carden had two sons – Hamer Rofe and Malcolm Rofe.

Rofe died on 26 February 2000

The Esther Rofe Award was established in her honor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Honors and awards 1993 Composer-of-Honour in the School of Music Conservatorium at Monash University. 1998 Australia Day Citizen of the Year award from the City of Boroondara 1998 Became a represented composer at the Australian Music Centre (AMC).

Compositions (incomplete list)

Piano solo Choral Prelude II (1927) Echo de Vienne Mathinna (1954) ballet choreographed by Laurel Martyn The Lake (1962) rework of L’Amour enchantee for television Opera and operetta Mogarzea (1926) fairy operetta