A note from BI Research Manager, Dr. Caiti Beth McKinney:

Hello, readers of Lili’s Corner! I am thrilled to share with you news of an amazing effort to promote the work of Swedish composer Elfrida Andrée. Below you will find information from the Boston University School of Music regarding a series of upcoming events, including a panel, concert, and recording project of Andrée’s Suffrage Cantata (1911) led by BU Director of Orchestral Activities, Sarah Ioannides. We are happy to share this outstanding project with all of you, and hope that any of you located in the Boston area will be free to attend!

“This fall, The Boston University School of Music and partners examine and perform works by a remarkable composer, Elfrida Andrée, who was composing and performing well ahead of her time. A panel and performance precede a world premiere recording at Boston University.

Sarah Ioannides, Director of Orchestral Activities and Associate Professor in Orchestral Conducting is spearheading the expansive efforts. The programming is made possible thanks to collaboration with Dr. Daniel Parsley (Director of Choral Activities, BU School of Music), musicologist and expert on Elfrida Andrée Dr. Jonathan Spatola-Knoll (Scholar and Music Consultant in Residence), The Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, Swedish Women’s Educational Association, New England Foundation for Psychoanalysis, and Boston University’s Anna Howard Shaw Center.” - Breaking Barriers & Breaking Silence: Boston University School of Music Celebrates a Pioneering Composer

Learn about Elfrida Andrée

Elfrida Andrée was born to Andreas and Lovisa (Lyth) Andrée on February 19, 1841 in Visby, Sweden, located on the small island of Gotland. Her father was a physician and earned enough to pay for an education in music for Andrée, her older sister Fredrika (1836-1880), and her younger brother Tor (1848-1901). A progressive thinker, Andreas Andrée was interested in things such as electric lighting and physical fitness. This liberal outlook proved to greatly benefit his two daughters in particular who otherwise would not have had equal opportunity for a well-rounded education. Andreas, an amateur musician himself, taught his children at home or involved local music teachers, thus Andrée learned voice, harp, and organ. Even at the young age of seven, Andrée had a passion for composition and began to compose small works. By the time she was fourteen, she had composed at least nineteen pieces for piano, voice, and choir.

In 1855, at the age of fourteen, Andreas sent Andrée to study music at the finest music institution in Sweden, the Royal Academy of Music (Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien) in Stockholm. While at the Academy, she studied voice, harp, and organ performance. Partway through her schooling, Andrée had to choose between pursuing voice and following in the footsteps of her sister Fredrika, an opera singer, or pursue the study of the organ. She ultimately chose to specialize in organ performance, but since she was a woman, the Academy regarded her as an external student in this discipline because, at the time, only male students were eligible to receive this degree. Despite this restriction, Andrée was allowed to study with the conservatory’s organ professor, Gustaf Mankell (1812-1880), whilst she attended the university. In 1857, at the young age of sixteen, Andrée passed the Royal Academy’s organists’ examination as both the youngest student and the first woman to do so, a triumph for the young musician.

Elfrida Achieves Ambitious Firsts for Women

Although Andrée quickly sought work as an organist at the Church of St. Jacques in Stockholm, she was refused appointment in 1859 on advice of the King’s archbishop who touted their interpretation of the biblical scripture, 1 Corinthians 14:34 “Women should remain silent in the churches” (1 Cor 14:34 NIV). There was also a belief in the church that a woman organist was “distracting, indecent, and disturbing to the atmosphere of meditation” (Ford 1997, 60). This setback did not deter Andrée and her father. For the next four years, they endlessly appealed the government’s restrictions on women in church. In 1861, they received a partial victory. Parliament passed an amendment declaring that an unmarried woman over the age of twenty-five could now legally be a professional organist. Andrée, though only twenty at the time, somehow managed to receive brief appointments at the Finnish and French Reform churches in Stockholm in addition to opportunities at the Royal Teaching Academy and the Allins School for Girls.

Selections from “Elfrida Andrée: A Pioneering Composer” by Elizabeth Tackett

“Andrée’s story is as fascinating as her music: an artist who refused to accept the limitations placed on her and used her creativity to challenge the world around her. Creating the first professional recordings of these works does more than preserve overlooked music—it gives her voice a lasting place in the international musical landscape and invites us to reconsider the history of classical music through a wider lens.”

Sarah Ioannides
Director of Orchestral Activities; Associate Professor in Orchestral Conducting