Maud Powell (1867-1920), born in Peru, Illinois, was recognized as a violin prodigy and at the age of 13, with her mother, went to Europe to study in Leipzig and Paris, and with Joseph Joachim in Berlin where she debuted with the Berlin Philharmonic (1885) and later that same year with the New York Philharmonic. Powell gave the American premieres of concertos by Tchaikovsky and Sibelius as well as championed American music through transcriptions of works composed by Coleridge-Taylor, H.P. Danks, Stephen Foster, Luke Schoolcraft, and J. Rosamond Johnson.