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
United States
Margaret Bonds
Composer and pianist Margaret Bonds grew up in a musically rich environment in Chicago—her mother was a gifted organist, and in high school Bonds studied
France
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was one of the most renowned composition teachers of the twentieth century—or of any century. Her students are a who’s who of famous
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
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
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
Germany
Marie Vespermann
Marie Vespermann was a quintuple threat: a pianist, singer, composer, poet, and dramatist, who showed prodigious musical gifts as a child. Born into an artistic
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.
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,
Germany
Fanny Hensel
Fanny Hensel was one of the most prolific and original song composers of the nineteenth century. She composed almost 250 songs, among which are some
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
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