March 8 is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the achievements of women throughout history.

Gender inequality certainly exists in music. And while the field of performance (solo and ensemble performers) has become considerably more gender balanced than it was in the past, composition still remains a male-dominated career.

Today I want to celebrate Amy Beach, who was the first American woman to have a successful career as a concert pianist and composer of Art Music.

Despite being a female composer at a time when composers simply weren’t supposed to be female, Beach was revered as a member of the Second New England School – the elite, first group of highly educated American composers. Their music is fabulous, but they get overshadowed by their European contemporaries, and nowadays, their music is considered to be not truly “American”. (whatever!)

Anyway, Beach is one seriously strong person. After she married in 1885, her husband asked (ie, demanded) that she limit her concert performances, an donate all her earnings to charity. Nevertheless, she persisted. Her 1896 “Gaelic Symphony” was a monumental success. Critics tried to find weaknesses in the composition and attach them to her sex, but to no avail. Audiences and her colleagues lifted her up as one of America’s finest.

The whole symphony is fabulous. If you have the time, I’d highly recommend listening to the rest of it – check the sidebar on Youtube, and follow the roman numerals. And if you don’t have the time … come back when you do 🙂

This year, in the American east, March has come in like a lamb with warm sun, but now that beastly lion (cold wind) has come back to bit us on the bum. Reminds me of a delightful musical setting of a set of Aesop’s fables by American composer Anthony Plog.

Sorry, hippies. Somebody beat you to it.

Justin Holland (1819-1887), was a civil-rights activist, moving around the same circles as Frederic Douglass. He worked with whites to free slaves in the Underground Railroad. Oh yeah, and he also played a mean guitar.

He became nationally known for his guitar method books – his approach to teaching was considered very conservative for the time (sorry, hippies; I guess he was a square). And, while not a composer himself, he was famous for arranging famous works of other composers, including this one, which includes some popular tunes from Carl Maria von Weber‘s opera, Oberon.