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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

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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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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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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

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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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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

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Clara Faisst
Germany

Clara Faisst

Clara Faisst was a composer, pianist, and poet who spent the bulk of her life in Karslbad, Germany. In her twenties she studied music in

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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

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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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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

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.

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England

Dame Ethel Smyth

Dame Ethel Smyth was a British composer, writer, and social activist who made significant contributions to many musical genres. A tireless advocate for her own

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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.