Musicians You Should Know: Elisabeth Kuyper

Basic Facts

Born: September 13, 1877, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Died: February 26, 1953, Viganello, Switzerland
Type of Performer: Composer, conductor, pianist
Genre: Classical

About Elisabeth Kuyper

Elisabeth Kuyper was born in 1877 in the Netherlands to a wealthy merchant family. She began studying music at age 12, and at age 19, she attended the Royal College of Music in Berlin; she later became the first woman to be appointed to the faculty there. In 1901, she became the first woman admitted to the Meisterschule für Komposition and in 1905 she became the first woman to win the Mendelssohn Prize. She went on to found and conduct women's orchestras in Holland, England, and Germany. She toured and guest conducted through Europe and the United States, with many orchestras playing her own compositions. Despite her trailblazing career, she is not widely known today and very little is know about her; of the available resources, most are in Dutch.

Further Reading

https://eng.kvast.org/kuyper-elisabeth/

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