Amy Beach's Life

Amy Beach’s Life By: Grace Booth Have you ever wondered where music composing started? Well, it all started with a girl named Amy Beach. Amy Beach was born Sept. 5 1867, in Henniker NH. Her mother’s name was Clara Imogene, she was a very famous pianist. She was the one who got Amy into piano! At the age of 6, Amy started studying piano, 1 year later she had a recital and she played pieces by Beethoven, and Chopin also some of her own pieces! Amy had child prodigy when she was little! An outstanding thing! She was writing simple symphonies at the age of 5! Even as she got older Amy’s love and passion for music stuck with her. Amy was now ready to start her own life. Also try to improve as much as she could on her music career. On Dec. 2 1885, Amy married Dr. Henry Beach, who was a physician, Harvard University Lecturer and an amateur singer. In 1910, sadly Dr. Henry Beach died. He died of old age, he was almost 20 years older than Amy! But it was a very hard time for Amy because now she didn’t have any one else alive in her family. After her husband’s death, Amy sailed to Europe, where once again her fame rose. Suddenly WWI workers sent her to New York, where she had to spend the rest of her life. On Dec. 27 1944, Amy died of chronic heart disease. Sadly most of her fame was forgotten, but she got a nice long life of 77 years, witch actually was a long life back then! It was a huge surprise to everyone when Amy passed, they all loved her and her music so much that some people said that it almost felt like one of their own family members died. Everyone remembered when Amy was young and when she was just starting to go into harder more complicated recitals. Amy was famous for her music composing and for incredible ability to play piano! Beach took after her mother, who was an extremely good pianist. Amy had her first symphony known as the “Gaelic Symphony” completed 1896, first symphony ever written by an American women! When her mother really started noticing Amy’s work she started putting her in more and more recitals. When people from all over the world started noticing her work, she got into once again harder more complicated recitals. Until finally she was put into a simple orchestra! But Amy didn’t just stop there, she wanted to keep going, keep writing more simple symphonies, she wanted to one day, write her own junior orchestra! So that’s what Amy was going for! She kept on writing, she kept on practicing and she never gave up! She wanted to be recognized! In 1883 Beach had a performance in Boston NH. In an orchestra, she was the pianist. It was conducted by Adolf Nuendorff. In 1885 Amy composed her first orchestra known as the “Cabildo.” When Amy sailed to Europe she had great reviews, in Germany too for her symphony! Amy is one of the legendary music composers of ALL TIME in the U.S. Beach wanted to win awards, be the best of the best! She loved recitals, orchestras, symphonies! All she really wanted, was music! And so she did, Amy won so many awards for her music, she also had some from her school! In 1928 Amy received her first honorary Master of Arts degree. She also received an award for being one of the world’s most famous women music composers! Amy also achieved her first American women to get a wide spread notice, for being a large scale music composer award! She also liked languages, such as French and German, she also loved science and she also ended up getting a Master of Science degree! She kept going and she kept on winning more and more awards! As Amy got older, she started winning more and more serious awards. In 1999 even after her death, she got a special place in the American Classical Music Hall of Fame! Amy finally earned a place on the Granite Wall, (more commonly known as the shell) for only the best music artists. The Shell has mostly men’s names on it, but Amy was so incredibly talented that she earned a place on that wall! Amy went from a little piano playing girl, to a legendary music composer! Amy was ambitious, curious, always positive, kind, brave and generous. Perfect for an extra ordinary special piano player and person.