Women Composers

* 1587 in Florenz
✝ 1639 in Florenz

Francesca Caccini (Florence, 18.9.1587? 1640) received her musical training from her father Giulio and gave her first performance as a singer in Florence in 1600. When the Caccini family (father Giulio, stepmother Margherita, sister Settimia and brother Pompeo) were staying at the court of Henry IV in Paris (1604/5), Francesca was offered a position there. In spite of further attractive offers from the courts of nobles in Rome and Ferrara she remained in Florence and entered the service of the…

* 1913 in Neapel
✝ 2017

Matilde Capuis was born on the first of January 1913 in Naples. When she was a little child, she already developed a strong affinity to music and attracted attention by her first attempts to compose. She studied violin, piano and organ in Florence and Venice. Between 1941 and 1946 she attended composition courses at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. She was awarded various composition prizes such as the “Premio Quartetto Veneziano” (1948), the “Premio Circolo Universitario”, Bolzano (1948), the “Concorso…

* 1957 in Racila Rumänien

From 1976 to1981 Carmen Maria Cârneci studied composition and conducting in Bucharest/Romania. After maticulating, she continued her studies in Freiburg/Germanywith Klaus Huber and Francis Travis, participated in conducting courses with Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös and others, and already gained several prizes and awards. Since 1986 she had numerous conducting engagements: at the Donaueschingen Festival in 1989 and 1992, regular guest conductor at the State Opera and the Chamber Theatre in Stuttgart, where she gave the premiere performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s…

* 1852 in Caracas
✝ 1916 in Koblenz

Teresa Carreño wurde 1853 in Caracas als Tochter des venezuelanischen Finanzministers geboren. Ausgebildet wurde sie in Venezuela und in Paris, und sie galt nach Sophie Menter als größte Pianistin ihrer Zeit und wurde als 'Walküre des Klaviers' bezeichnet. Zeitweise hatte sie Unterricht bei Anton Rubinstein. 1889 erster Auftritt in Berlin. In dritter Ehe war sie mit dem 11 Jahre jüngeren Eugen d' Albert verheiratet. Sie dirigierte und komponierte, so z.B. die Nationalhymne von Venezuela. Sie starb 1917 in Koblenz.

* 1974 in Panevezys/Litauen

Diana Čemerytė made her first attempts at composing at the age of nine. After training in composition and music theory at the Vilnius Conservatory, she studied composition with Osvaldas Balakauskas at the Lithuanian Academy of Music in Vilnius from 1994 to 2000. She then went on to study musicology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. more information Diana Čemerytė has received various commissions for compositions and is a regular guest at festivals and concerts for contemporary…

* 1856
✝ 1943

The Parisian composer and pianist Cécile Chaminade contributed more than any other creative musician to the colour of cultural life in the city on the Seine both in the versatility of her means of expression and [in terms of formal diversity] among the composers of the French piano music of the Belle Epoque, comparable most closely to Saint-Saëns and Debussy. She mastered the classical-romantic sonata form with the same confidence as the theory of the lied or the tonal balance…

* 1960 in Fribourg
✝ 2018

Caroline Charrière was born in Fribourg (Switzerland) in 1960, graduated in flute from the Lausanne Conservatory (under Pierre Wavre) and continued her studies with Aurèle Nicolet and at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK). At the same time, she studied orchestration and composition with the Swiss composer Jean Balissat. Since the autumn of 2000, Caroline Charrière has devoted herself mainly to composition. At the beginning of 2017, she won a competition for a one-year stay at the…

* 1998 in Germany

Born in Hamburg in 1998, Daria Cheikh-Sarraf received piano lessons from the Russian concert pianist Nathalia Haberlach at just eight years of age. Soon after, she began attending lessons in composition with Burkhard Friedrich. In 2021, Cheikh-Sarraf graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music composition from the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH), where she studied at the Incontri Institute for New Music with Gordon Williamson, Ming Tsao and Joachim Heintz. Since October 2021 she has been studying…

* 1885 in Harrow, England
✝ 1978

Rebecca Clarke, composer and violist Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) was born in Harrow, England to an American father and a German mother. Educated at London's Royal College of Music, she studied composition with Sir Charles Stanford; she was his first woman student. Clarke had a long career as a professional violist; in 1913 she was one of the first women to be admitted to the Queen's Hall Orchestra. She achieved fame as a composer with her Viola Sonata (1919) and Piano…

* 1979 in Thionville/Frankreich

Aude Clesse was born in 1980 in France, into a non-musical family. From the age of ten, she studied piano at the Conservatoire de Musique d՚Esch-sur-Alzette (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg). At the age of 24 she started to play the saxophone. After several years of studying harmony, counterpoint and fugue at the Conservatory in Esch-sur-Alzette she took up composition. She also studied at the Metz University (France) where she graduated in musicology. Since then she has been teaching piano and…

* 1937 in Wausau, Wisconsin

Gloria Coates erhielt bereits mit zwölf Jahren den renommierten Kompositionspreis der ‚National Federation of Music Clubs/Junior Division'. Sie machte ihre Master- und post graduate Studien in Komposition an der Louisiana State University und an der Columbia University in New York. Gloria Coates’ Œuvre umfasst nahezu alle Bereiche der Musik: von Orchesterwerken, darunter 14 Symphonien - keine Komponistin hat bislang so viele Symphonien geschrieben - bis hin zu Elektronischer Musik. Ihre Werke erhielten zahlreiche Preise (u. a. die Internationale Koussevitzki Auszeichnung)…

* 1759 in Rom
✝ 1832 in Rom

Not many women composers of the 18th century composed fugues, but Coccia’s parents, recognizing their daughter’s musical brilliance, hired Sante Pesci, composer and maestro di cappella of the Basilica Liberiana, to teach her counterpoint. He prepared Coccia to take the qualifying exam given at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, in order to attain the credentials to work for the church as a chapel master. The exam consisted of composing an extemporaneous fugue on a given subject, usually an antiphon or…

* 1887 in Lineville Iowa
✝ 1970

Irene Cozad was born in Lineville, Iowa, but came to prominence in the Kansas City area. She reportedly played piano with the Kansas Symphony and prior to the publication of her two rags was listed in the city directory as a music teacher. While Cozad married J. Whitman Sherer, M.D., in 1912, her compositions did not entirely stop. A few songs appeared up through 1920, including Kansas City Town which won her a $100.00 prize in a contest sponsored by…

* 1602 in Mailand
✝ 1676

Margarita Cozzolani kam am 27. November 1602 in Mailand als Tochter einer wohlhabenden Familie zur Welt. Bereits als Jugendliche trat sie in das renommierte Benediktinerkloster St. Radegonda ein, wo sie 1620 die Ewige Profess ablegte und den Ordensnamen Chiara Margarita annahm. In den Jahren 1658-60 und 1672-73 ist sie als Äbtissin, 1664 und 1671 als Priorin des Klosters verzeichnet.

* 1963 in Sindelfingen

Andrea Csollány studied piano in Mannheim, majoring in music theory (Prof. Hermann Schäfer) and aural training. She went on to do further studies in piano and composition with Dimitri Terzakis and Wolfgang Rihm, among others. Since 1986 she has been teach- ing piano, chamber music, music theory (preparatory course for university studies) and composition at the Municipal School of Music in Mannheim. She has also held a special teaching post for aural training and arrangement at the Mannheim Musikhochschule since…