Margaret Ruthven Lang Anniversary

By Song of America

May 29, 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Margaret Ruthven Lang. If you have never heard of Margaret Ruthven Lang, you are not alone. This forgotten American woman, born in Boston in 1867 and who lived until 1972, spent the first 50 years of her life surrounded by prominent musicians , poets and painters of the day and indeed becoming one of the most highly regarded female composers of her time, the first American woman to have a major orchestra perform her compositions in 1893, and to publish some 150 works, performed by great artists throughout the US and Europe, only to spend the next 50 years of her life in anonymity, never to compose again or hardly even to mention it.

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