Where Credit Is Due

You probably are familiar with composers named Mendelssohn and Schumann, but not the ones with the first names of Fanny and Clara. Come to think of it, you’re probably not familiar with any women composers.

But Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann were accomplished musicians, and Susan Pickett wants to educate you about them--and many others like them. Pickett will offer a lesson Sunday at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, when she plays music for violin and piano by women composers from the 17th to the 20th centuries with pianist Debra Richter and soprano Sonya Gourley.

Fanny Mendelssohn was Felix’s sister, and he published her songs under his name just to get them published. Clara Schumann was Robert’s wife, and after the famous composer died she supported herself and their seven children playing piano, including her own compositions.

“My whole research has opened up an entirely new world,” said Pickett, who became interested in women composers when she stumbled across a reference to Marion Bauer, an early 20th-Century composer. “I had 10 years of college education and a woman composer was never even mentioned.”

Pickett, a violinist, has a doctorate in fine arts from Texas Tech and teaches at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.

Her research on Bauer led her to more than 600 pieces of music by women for piano and violin alone, pieces that date to the 17th Century.

“I have found some master works that have been sitting in libraries for almost 300 years, begging to be played,” she said.

Pickett and other musicians will play music by Clara Schumann; Sister Isabella Leonarda, an Italian nun who lived from 1620 to 1704; Anna Amalia, the sister of Russian Tzar Frederick the Great who lived from 1723 to 1787, and of course Marion Bauer, 1882 to 1955.

The 3 p.m. concert in the Bird Studio, 1600 Campus Road, is free.