Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867 - 1972)

Margaret Ruthven Lang was born in Boston, MA in the same year as Amy Beach and lived to the age of 105. Unlike the self-taught Beach, she followed the path of many other composers of the "Boston School," traveling to Germany to study counterpoint and fugue. Upon her return to Boston she studied orchestration and composition with Edward MacDowell. Her song Ojala to poetry of George Eliot, was performed at the Paris Exposition in 1889 and served to establish her reputation as a composer. In April, 1893,the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered her Dramatic Overture, op. 12; it was the first performance of a work by an American woman composer by a major American orchestra.