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
England
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an acclaimed British conductor and composer. The son of an Englishwoman and a man from Sierra Leone, he showed great musical talent
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
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
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
Chile
Carmela Mackenna
Carmela Mackenna was a Chilean woman composer who wrote a wide variety of works, including solo piano pieces, chamber music, choral music, orchestral music, and
United States
Connie Converse
Connie Converse was one of the first singer-songwriters, but she toiled in obscurity, and her music didn’t become widely known until the first decade of
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
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
United States
H. Leslie Adams
The composer and pianist H. Leslie Adams has had a long and illustrious career. Now in his nineties, he was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in
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
England
Dame Elizabeth Maconchy
Elizabeth Maconchy was a fiercely individual Irish-English composer who wrote music that was often highly dissonant, contrapuntal, intense, even disturbing—and far from the more pastoral,