Soprano Rita M. Coonan was born in Adelaide 5 June 1897. She was the 1916 Brookman Scholar at the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium. In 1920 Rita performed at the University in the Student Revue and also sang in the First Grand Concert of the All Australia Peace Exhibition at the Adelaide Exhibition Building, and in, 1921, at an Orpheus Society concert at Adelaide Town Hall. In Victoria during 1922, she married Max Stewart Goyder, and then went to study in Paris. She performed in London in the mid- 1920ss. Mentored by Dame Nellie Melba, for a decade Rita taught singing in Melbourne at the Conservatorium which Melba had founded there. She died in 1988.
The photograph of Miss Rita Coonan is from the News Thursday 31 Jan 1924, p5.
Coonan, Rita, The robin's song by Rita Coonan. State Library of South Australia, accessed 20/08/2026, https://digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/nodes/view/3590
