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Category: Women in Music

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

The Belle Brown Collection: An American Opera Student at the Turn of the 20th Century

Posted by: Cait Miller

The Music Division’s archival collections feature the archives and personal papers of some of the most significant and influential artists and figures in music history, particularly 20th-century composers, conductors, scholars, and publishers. When researchers and performers think of the Music Division’s archival collections, names like Leonard Bernstein, George and Ira Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Serge Koussevitzky, …

Black and white photographic print portrait of Amy Beach, capturing her head and shoulders as she faces slightly left.

Happy Birthday to Amy Beach!

Posted by: Cait Miller

Composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) was the first American woman to achieve widespread recognition as a composer of large-scale works with orchestra. Read about correspondence between Oscar Sonneck, first Chief of the Music Division, and Beach regarding her Piano Concerto and the idea of sending manuscripts to the Library of Congress for preservation.

Woman with dark hair, fancy dress and pearls with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, singing

In Memory of Patty Andrews and the Andrews Sisters

Posted by: Cait Miller

The following is a guest post co-authored by Music Archivist Chris Hartten and Senior Music Specialist Mark Horowitz. There is a history of women’s singing groups being representative of their eras: the Boswell Sisters in the ‘30s, Dianna Ross and the Supremes in the ‘60s, Destiny’s Child in the ‘90s. But no group seemed to …