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
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
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
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
Mel Bonis
Mélanie Bonis’s life story is one of perseverance and talent overcoming all manner of obstacles. She grew up in a middle-class home with parents who
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
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
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
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
United States
Adolphus Hailstork
Adolphus Hailstork is a prolific composer who has written over 250 works in just about every genre imaginable: symphonies, operas, cantatas, concertos, chamber music, choral
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