Alicia Adélaide Needham

Who was Alicia Adélaide Needham?

Alicia Adélaide Needham was an Irish composer of songs and ballads. She was born in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, with the maiden name Montgomery. She went to boarding school in Derry for four years and spent the following year in Castletown, Isle of Man. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, first for one year only: piano with the Irish pianist and composer Arthur O'Leary, harmony and counterpoint with Frank Davenport and occasionally with George Alexander Macfarren and Ebenezer Prout. It is not clear what she did in the intervening three years before she resumed her studies in 1884, but she then graduated in 1887 and became a Licentiate of the Academy in 1889. In 1893 she also passed the examinations to the Associateship of the Royal College of Music. In the meantime she had married the London-based physician Joseph Needham in 1892 and in 1900 gave birth to their only child, also called Joseph.

Actively supported by her husband who organised concerts for her and arranged her earliest publications, her musical career began in 1894 with a number of publications and piano and song recitals.