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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

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Margaret Bonds
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

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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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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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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

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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

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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

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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

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Germany

Marie von Kehler

Precious little is known about the German composer Marie von Kehler. We have more music by her than documentary information about her. She was born

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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

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Peru

Theodoro Valcárcel

Theodoro Valcárcel was one of the most significant Peruvian composers in the first half of the twentieth century. He published a wide variety of works,

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United States

Sarah Kirkland Snider

Sarah Kirkland Snider is one of the most inventive and prolific composers working today. Her music spans a diverse range of genres—orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic,

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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,

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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.