{"id":2325,"date":"2017-10-24T00:44:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T05:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2017-10-24T00:44:34","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T05:44:34","slug":"is-sexism-in-music-better-now-than-it-was-a-century-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2017\/10\/24\/is-sexism-in-music-better-now-than-it-was-a-century-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Is sexism in music better now than it was a century ago?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The cover for Amy Beach’s 4 Sketches, Op. 15, from the Americana Sheet Music Collection<\/p><\/div>\n

It is without question that Amy Beach was among the early influential American composers, with a decorated career of both composition and performance. Her career took place during the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th, which was prime time for white male hegemony, yet Beach still found great success. She was privileged to have taken music lessons and married young, which in turn allowed her to hone in on her compositional and piano performance skills. With the death of her much older husband in 1911, Beach was able to go abroad to Europe for a performance tour, returning to the States in 1914 because of World War I. This did not stop her from performing though, since she took on a cross-country tour of the United States. Beach often took her performance opportunities to play her own pieces, which is clearly shown with her extensive piano repertoire. Featured below is a the fourth sketch titled <\/span>Fireflies<\/span><\/i>, from her <\/span>4 Sketches, Op. 15<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n