ALICE SAMTER - GERMANY
BORN 11 JUNE
BORN 11 JUNE
Alice Samter was a German music educator and composer. Alice Samter was born in Berlin to a middle-class family. She trained and worked as an accountant while studying piano, improvisation, choral work and school music at Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory and the Academy of Music in Berlin. In 1945 she received a degree in music and became a teacher in the Spandau schools where she began to compose school opera. After she retired from teaching in 1970, she became a composer full-time. She was a member of several organizations of composers, including GEDOK Berlin, the International Working Group on Women and Music and the International League of Woman Composers (USA). Her work has been performed internationally, and in 1988 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
In 1999 she established the Alice Samter Foundation at the Berlin University of the Arts to support music students at the university. She also donated funds to the Berlin State Library for the purchase of Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn manuscripts.
Samter's family home was destroyed by a bomb during the war and she moved with her mother and adopted sister to an apartment in Charlottenburg where she continued to live for the rest of her life. She was the subject of documentary films through West German Broadcasting (WDR), and her papers are housed in the Berlin State Library. She wrote her last song in 2003.
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MARGARETHE DANZI - GERMANY
BORN 11 JUNE
Maria Margarethe Danzi (née Marchand) was a German composer and soprano.
Margarethe Marchand was born in Germany. Some sources give her birthplace as Munich and others Mannheim, and it was possible that the family was on tour in Frankfurt on the date of her birth. She was the daughter of the singer, actress and dancer Magdalena Brochard Marchand and Theobald Hilary Marchand, director of the National Theatre of Mannheim. Margarethe studied music and composition in Munich with Franziska Lebrun and in Salzburg with Leopold Mozart. She apprenticed in supporting roles and debuted in 1787 at the age of 12 at the Mannheim Court Theater, performing the title role in 'The Youth' by Johann Jakob Engel.
In 1790 she married conductor and composer Franz Danzi, and performed with him as prima donna of the troupe Domenico Guardasonis on European concert tours. After 1796 Margaret also performed as prima donna at the Munich Court Theatre.
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