Louise Emily (Emma) Lomax (22 June 1873 – 29 August 1963) was anEnglish composer and pianist. She was born inBrighton, daughter of the curator of Brighton Free Library and Museum.[1] She attended the Brighton School of Music and then theRoyal Academy of Music in London studying clarinet, and composition withFrederick Corder. She was a Goring Thomas Scholar from 1907 to 1910 and won theCharles Lucas Medal in 1910, awarded for herTheme and Variations for orchestra.[2]
After completing her studies, Lomax became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music (1918-38), and taught atBrighton College.[3] She was a friend and collaborator of English composer and pianistEleanor Rudall.[4] Much of her music was dramatically inspired, including a series of recitations and dramatic sketches, some with supernatural themes and with orchestral or piano accompaniment. For instance,The House of Shadows, performed at the Royal Academy in 1904, was described as "a poetic play in two Acts [which] involved several remarkable electric lighting effects devised by [the composer]".[5]
The Toy Overture, a parody of Tchaikovsky's1812 Overture, was performed by The Brighton Municipal Orchestra in 1915.[2] Her operaThe Marsh of Vervais was never fully staged, thoughDan Godfrey conducted the Prelude to Act 2 at a Bournemouth Winter Gardens concert in January 1927.[6]
Lomax was a member of the Sussex Women's Musicians Club and the Society of Women Musicians. She lived at 11 Park Crescent in Brighton.[7] In her later years she became interested intoy theatre, running the private Early Victorian Theatre in Brighton.[8] She died in Brighton in 1963, aged 90.
Selected works include:
There were also part-songs and solo songs. Lomax wrote the libretto for Bertram Walton O’Donnell's comic operaThe Demon's Bride (1909). Her professional articles include: