Best known as a composer and pianist, Miriam Hyde was the daughter of Clarence Hyde and his wife Muriel (Gmeiner). Hyde was born at 10 Rose Street, Prospect. She was educated at Tormore House and Riverside Schools, and was runner-up for the Tennyson Medal in her Leaving exam in 1929.
After piano studies with her mother, Hyde continued at the Elder Conservatorium of the University of Adelaide, attaining the AMUA, LAB and MusBac, and winning the Elder Scholarship for three years' study at the Royal College of Music, London, 1932-5. With this stimulus her talent for composition, apparent from a very early age, flourished along with her nominal first subject, piano. She won three prizes, performed her own two concertos with the major London orchestras and gave several recitals for the BBC. She gained the ARCM (piano and composition) and LRAM (piano). Returning to Adelaide in SA's Centenary year (1936) Hyde wrote much of the incidental orchestral music for the pageant 'Heritage' produced by Ellinor Gertrude Walker and Heather Gell at the Tivoli Theatre.
Hyde moved to Sydney, and in 1939 married Marcus Edwards, on the brink of his departure with the 2nd AIF. He was away for over five years. She published three books of verse under her married name, Edwards, during the war years, and most of them were sold at 2/- each to raise Red Cross funds. Looking back, she believed that she wrote them under her married name rather than her professional name because of her intention to send them to her husband, then a POW in Germany, as a gesture of courtesy and love, and to identify him. In later years she wrote as Miriam Hyde. A number of her poems have been used for her songs.
As a teacher, Hyde was involved with Kambala School, Sydney, 1937-41, the Elder Conservatorium 1942-5, as a tutor in numerous city and country workshops, and in private practice. She was an Australian Music Examinations Board examiner from 1945-1982. Her musical output was vast; for piano, orchestra, chamber music, woodwind, songs etc, and much of her work has been recorded on CDs. Her awards included the AO, OBE, Hon D Litt (Macquarie University), Hon F Mus A, and International Woman of the Year 1991-2 and again 1998-9 from Cambridge International Biographical Centre for Service to Music. She was a Patron of the Music Teachers' Associations of NSW and SA, the Australian Musicians' Academy, the Blue Mountains Eisteddfod, the Inner West Eisteddfod (Sydney) and Honorary Life Member of the Music Teachers' Association of Vic, the Strathfield Symphony Orchestra and the Fellowship of Australian Composers. She published her autobiography, Complete Accord, in 1991, and in 1996 Film Australia made a documentary of her life.
Hyde died a few days short of her 92nd birthday after a long struggle with cancer. In lieu of a funeral she requested that her body be donated to research at the University of Sydney and her family arranged a commemorative concert at the Sydney Conservatorium.
