Amy Marcy [Cheney] Beach (1867-1944)

Born into the abolitionist Cheney family, one of whom co-founded Bates College, Amy Beach was a child prodigy, composing by the age of four, and was almost completely self-taught. Despite the constraints placed upon her due to her gender and the restrictions of her husband, Beach was a prolific and successful composer, achieving her first major compositional success in 1892 with her Mass in E-Flat Major. Her Gaelic Symphony, the first ever symphony composed and published by an American woman, would become her most well-known work and cement her legacy as a pioneer in American music.

N.B. For a period of time she took the professional name “H.H.A Beach,” as compelled to do by her husband, Henry Harris Aubrey Beach.