Elfrida Andrée.
Elfrida Andrée was born in Visby, Sweden on February 19, 1841. She and her two siblings were given their first music lessons by their father, who was a physician and amateur musician. From 1855-1857 Andrée studied organ at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, but as an “external student” because women were not allowed to officially enroll in the organ classes. In 1857 she passed the organists’ examination, but a Swedish law forbidding women to be professional organists prevented Andrée from initially pursuing a career as an organist. (The law was based on Saint Paul’s edict “women must be silent in church.”) Andrée and her father fought for four years to have Parliament change the law, and succeeded in 1861. From 1862-1867 she held several church positions in Stockholm, and subsequently worked as an organist and music director at the Göteborg Cathedral where she remained for the rest of her career. Andrée began composing in her childhood; she studied composition privately during her years in Stockholm, and in 1870 studied with Niels Gade in Copenhagen. She was elected to the Swedish Academy of Music in 1879. Elfrida Andrée died in Göteborg on January 11, 1929. She composed over 100 works.
