BIOGRAPHY
Elisabeth Kuyper studied piano with Louis Coenen, Antoon Averkamp, and Daniel de Lange. She later became interested in composition, writing a piano sonata by age eighteen. Kuyper went to Berlin in 1895 to study with Max Bruch at the Hochschule für Musik.¹ At age 31, Kuyper became the first woman professor in the school’s history.²

Kuyper’s compositions became well known, and many were performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1905, Kuyper was the first woman to win the Mendelssohn State Prize. It was nearly impossible for a woman to be hired as a professional symphony orchestra musician at this time, so Kuyper founded the Berlin Tonkünstlerinnen-Orchester (Berlin Women Musicians' Orchestra) and the London Women’s Symphony Orchestra in 1910 and 1923, respectively.³ These organizations paved the way for women to be admitted into professional orchestras. In total, Kuyper founded four symphony orchestras in the United States and Europe.⁴

Kuyper’s compositions included works for stage, orchestra, chorus, solo voice, and chamber music. In 1939, she retired in Switzerland.⁵