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
Rebecca Clarke
Rebecca Clarke was one of most distinguished and gifted British composers in the first half of the 20th century. Born to an American father and
United States
Irene Britton Smith
Irene Britton Smith was a Black American composer (also of Crow and Cherokee descent) who wrote only thirty-six compositions, including nineteen pieces of vocal music.
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
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
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
Mexico
Rodrigo Ruiz
Rodrigo Ruiz is a Mexican-American composer who writes vocal, chamber, and orchestral music that has been described as “unabashedly tonal.” His music sounds by turns
Spain
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo was one of the most significant figures in 20th-century Spanish music. A gifted composer, pianist, academic, and music critic, he cultivated a neoclassical
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
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
United States
Florence Price
Florence Price was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who was born in Little Rock, Ark., and spent much of much of her career
Germany
Pauline Decker
Pauline Decker (née von Schätzel) was a German opera singer who published about thirty songs later in her life. Born into a distinguished musical family—her