A New Album Recreates The Work Of The First Known Women Composers In America
Women rarely received credit for their creative work in colonial America. But with a new album, one scholar is reviving the works of the women who lived and composed at the Ephrata Cloister.
Chris Herbert was in a hurry. The vocalist and musicologist was studying the Ephrata Codex — an 18th century music manuscript — in the Library of Congress, which meant he was on the clock. Herbert was working on digitizing the Codex. He flipped through the pages, taking pictures of each one, with no time to pause.
A few weeks later while on tour in Europe, he took time to examine his work,written in small font beside the musical compositions. Three of those names belonged to women: Sister Föben, Sister Katura and Sister Hanna.
