Alma Mahler

Born Alma Schindler on 31 August 1879 in Austria, she was musically active from childhood and mentored by Max Burckhard at 15. She composed nearly fifty songs for voice and piano along with other works, though only 17 are known to survive. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, she and her Jewish husband Franz Werfel fled, eventually settling in Los Angeles. Her salon became a fixture of the artistic scene — first in Vienna, then across Los Angeles and New York in her later years. She died on 11 December 1964.