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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
United States
Undine Smith Moore
Undine Smith Moore was a composer and educator who left a lasting impact on twentieth-century music. For over forty years she taught music theory, piano,