Cecile Chaminade was born in Paris in 1857. She began composing at the age of eight. She studied music with private tutors (Godard, Le Couppey, Marsick and Savard) and gave her first piano concert when she was eighteen years old. She continued to tour extensively throughout her life, also playing in the United States in 1908. Her music, by then, had become quite popular in France, and she had been appointed Officer of Public Instruction. She composed nearly 400 works, and most of them were published in her lifetime. Her most popular works were her piano pieces and melodies.
