(1877–1953)
A ground breaking composer, conductor, and activist in women’s rights movements.
Elisabeth Kuyper became the first woman to be admitted to study composition at the Meisterschule für Komposition in Berlin in 1901, then led by the renowned composer Max Bruch. In 1905, Kuyper became the first woman composer to be awarded the Mendelssohn Prize, and then in 1908, the first woman to be appointed as a professor of Composition and Theory at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin.
Her mentor Max Bruch described Elisabeth Kuyper’s compositions as “notable for their independent inspiration, beauty of form and forceful melody.”
Two previously‑unrecorded compositions by Elisabeth Kuyper are featured on the 2014 Feminae Records release Kuyper, Rediscovering a Dutch Master: her Sonata for Violin and Piano, opus 1, and her Concerto in B Minor for Violin and Orchestra, opus 10,