Germaine Tailleferre

Germaine Tailleferre (1892 –1983) was a French composer and the only female member of the group of composers known as Les Six.

Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse was born at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, but as a young woman she changed her last name from "Taillefesse" to "Tailleferre" to spite her father, who had refused to support her musical studies. She studied piano with her mother at home, composing short works of her own, after which she began studying at the Paris Conservatory.

Tailleferre wrote many of her most important works during the 1920s. At the outbreak of World War II, she was forced to leave most of her scores at her home in Grasse, with the exception of her recently completed Three Études for Piano and Orchestra. Escaping across Spain to Portugal, she found passage on a boat that took her to the United States, where she lived the war years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

After the war, in 1946, she returned to her home in France, where she composed orchestral and chamber music, plus numerous other works.

Germaine Tailleferre continued to compose right up until a few weeks before her death, on 7 November 1983 in Paris. She is buried in Quincy-Voisins, Seine-et-Marne, France.

Thanks again Frans