Among composers, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky may be some of the most recognizable names in music history. But what about Clara Kathleen Rogers, Margaret Ruthven Lang, or Kate Vannah, all American women composers also writing works during the 19th century?
Their lack of representation and notoriety fascinates Ellen Pelos ’16. A double major in psychology and music, Pelos is no stranger to the music scene. Music has been a part of Pelos’ life since she began playing the piano at age four and singing at 12.
“I have always loved the act of making music,” she says. “There’s something magical about it – it’s like a universal language.”
A music history class with Professor Anne Harley awoke her to the chronic under-representation Rogers and her cohorts receive by historians – and subsequently classrooms. Despite a wealth of public documentation on their accomplishments, students rarely venture beyond the textbook for additional insights.
“I didn’t really notice the discrepancy before then,” Pelos says. “Once I realized there were women composing throughout history, I wanted to learn as much as I could about them.”
And after receiving a Mellon Undergraduate Research Fellowship, she did just that.
During her research, Pelos investigated American woman song composers with Harley’s guidance. Her summer research at UC Davis’ Shields Library culminates as the student recital, “Women in Music in Post-Civil War America: 1865-1900,” which honors female American composers who were also abolitionists and/or suffragists.
The recital is free and open to the public, on Thursday, March 26 at 8:00 pm, in Scripps College’s Balch Auditorium. Orchestrated by Pelos, the event includes student performances and renditions of three hymns by the Claremont Chamber Choir. “Freedom’s Battles,” an abolitionist hymn with texts by African American woman poet and activist Frances Watkins Harper, will also be performed.
“My ultimate goal,” Pelos says, “is to bring our community together to learn more about these amazing 19th-century women, while also encouraging and challenging peers and faculty to take on a more comprehensive view of music history.”