Florence Maud Ewart made her début as a violinist at the Albert Hall, London, at the age of 14. She went on to study at Leipzig and at Berlin where she was a pupil of Joseph Joachim, paying for her instruction with her earnings as a coach for Dr Adolph Brodsky of Leipzig. By 1894 she had established a reputation in Birmingham as a conductor, recitalist and lecturer.
In 1898 she married Alfred James Ewart whom she had met in Leipzig. The couple lived at Birmingham; their two sons were born in 1900 and 1902. In February 1906 the Ewarts moved to Melbourne. In 1907 Florence was co-conductor for the first Australian Women's Work Exhibition, winning first prize for an ode, 'God guide Australia', which was performed by the all-women orchestra at the exhibition. A rheumatic condition was the reason she gave for curtailing her appearances as a violinist from that time and she turned more to composition. Unhappy and unsettled in her domestic life, Florence went abroad in 1910, 1916, and in 1920-21 when she visited Italy and Paris and first came under the influence of Debussy's music. After this trip she asked for a separation from her husband. In Europe again from late 1924 until June 1928, she studied with the composer Ottorino Respighi. In 1929 she was divorced. Florence Ewart began work on the opera 'The Courtship of Miles Standish 'in mid-1928, at Olinda, near Melbourne. Altogether Florence Ewart composed six operas. She wrote five works for voice and orchestra, forty-six songs and a body of instrumental works. All these are housed at the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne. Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography Online http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080475b.htm (viewed 23/10/09)
