Clara Kathleen Rogers (1844-1931) had a remarkable career as a singer, a teacher, a composer, and as a writer. Her father, a cousin of Meyerbeer, was an opera composer, and her maternal grandfather was the great English cellist Robert Lindly. She studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, toured as a singer under the name of Clara Doria, and settled in Boston where she married a Lawyer and stopped performing. As a married woman she devoted her time to composing and teaching, and in 1919 she wrote about her remarkable life (with observations galore about Liszt, Ferdinand David, Von Bulow, Moscheles, and a whole slew of other fiddle players, pianists, and singers). Her Memories of a Musical Career is available to download as a PDF through the Internet Archive.
Rogers's early years in Boston include her friendship with Longfellow. Here's a poem he wrote for her:
The memoir ends with her marriage, which was when her life as a composer really began.
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