Women's History Month

Today's Beautiful Music is one of Elizabeth Maconchy's approximately 200 compositions -- her String Quartet #1 played by Bloomsbury Quartet from a 2019 recital at Wigmore Hall in London.

Today's Beautiful Music features songs by Ina Boyle, an Irish composer who lived from 1889-1967. Her early musical training was provided by her father and her governess, and she grew into an accomplished composer whose teachers included Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was an outstanding Parisian keyboard virtuosa, singer, and composer who lived from 1665-1729. She was the first woman to compose an opera in France.

Violinist Florence Malgoire grew up in a musical family. Her mother France Gombert played flute and her father Jean-Claude Malgoire led the early music group La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy in which Florence played.

Two adventurous musicians trace the history of their fruitful collaboration in a set of pieces both ferocious and beautiful.

Today's Beautiful Music is the song IF I CAN HELP SOMEBODY by Alma Bazel Androzzo, a self-taught Tennessee-born composer and pianist who lived from 1912-2001.

Today's Beautiful Music features pianist Lauma Skride with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra playing Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in a op.7. Clara Schumann herself premiered this Concerto on November 9, 1835 as soloist with the with the same orchestra, led by Felix Mendelssohn.

Today's Beautiful Music features Holly Mathieson leading Symphony Nova Scotia playing one of her favorite pieces -- the Symphony #2 by Johannes Brahms.

In 2008, Jeri Lynne Johnson founded Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, and she remains its artistic director and conductor. She's made history in 2005 as the first Black woman to win an international conducting prize when she was awarded the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship.