Elizabeth Poston

Who was Elizabeth Poston?

Elizabeth Poston was an English composer, pianist, and writer. She studied at Queen Margaret's School, York, and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was encouraged by both Peter Warlock and Ralph Vaughan Williams. She won a prize from the RAM for her violin sonata, which was subsequently broadcast by the BBC. When she graduated from the RAM in 1925, seven of her songs were published, and in 1928 she published five more. Poston went abroad between 1930 and 1939, where she studied architecture and collected folksongs. When she returned to England at the beginning of WWII she joined the BBC and became director of music in the European Service. She left briefly in 1945, but returned in 1947 to advise on the creation of the BBC Third Programme. Poston was the president of the Society of Women Musicians 1955–61.

Poston composed scores for radio and television productions – over 40 for radio alone – and collaborated with C. S. Lewis, Dylan Thomas, and other writers. She wrote the score for the television production of Howards End while living in Rooks Nest House near Stevenage, where E.M. Forster had lived as a child, and which was the setting for the novel.