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Austria

Elise Schmezer

Elise Schmezer was a singer, pianist, and composer who published about forty songs between 1848 and 1856. Little is known about her life. She was

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France

Lili Boulanger

Lili Boulanger had a tragically short life. She died at age twenty-four from intestinal tuberculosis, and spent much of her life in poor health, having

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Ireland

Ina Boyle

Until recently, the name Ina Boyle was something of an enigma. Although she was one of the most prolific composers in Ireland during the first

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France

Mel Bonis

Mélanie Bonis’s life story is one of perseverance and talent overcoming all manner of obstacles. She grew up in a middle-class home with parents who

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United States

Sarah Kirkland Snider

Sarah Kirkland Snider is one of the most inventive and prolific composers working today. Her music spans a diverse range of genres—orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic,

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Mary Wurm
England

Mary Wurm

Mary Wurm was a pianist and composer, born in England to German parents. She grew up in a musical family: her father was a music

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France

Cécile Chaminade

French composer and pianist Cécile Chaminade wrote approximately four hundred works, including 125 songs. Almost all of her works were published in her lifetime—rare for

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Marie Franz
Germany

Marie Franz

Marie Franz published one opus of six songs in 1846, under her maiden name Hinrichs, and then, after marrying the composer Robert Franz, stopped writing

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Germany

Marie von Kehler

Precious little is known about the German composer Marie von Kehler. We have more music by her than documentary information about her. She was born

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Germany

Josephine Lang

Josephine Lang was a prolific composer of songs. She was born into a deeply musical family—her father was a violinist and her mother (who first

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United States

Mary Turner Salter

Born in Peoria, Illinois, Mary Turner Salter went to high school just across the Mississippi River in Burlington, Iowa, before moving east to study music

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United States

Mary Howe

Mary Howe was an American pianist and composer. In 1922, at the age of forty, married with three children, she completed an artist diploma in

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Did you know?

A portfolio of Clara Faisst’s autograph manuscripts (as well as photographs and programs) was discovered at a garbage site in Karlsruhe, Germany; the manuscripts would have been lost forever were it not for an eagle-eyed passerby.

Did you know?

Fanny Hensel’s op. 1 (a collection of six songs) was published in the summer of 1846, less than a year before she died of a stroke at the age of 41.