Clara Kathleen Rogers

Clara Kathleen Barnett Rogers (January 14, 1844 – March 8, 1931), was an English-born American composer, singer, writer, and music educator. She wrote books about singing and her career. Early life and education Rogers was born in Cheltenham, England, into a musical family. Her grandfather, Robert Lindley, was a cellist; her parents, composer John Barnett and Eliza, a singer, were her first music teachers. When Rogers was twelve, her family moved to Germany to further their children’s musical education. Clara was admitted to the Leipzig Conservatory at the age of twelve and studied piano with Ignaz Moscheles, Louis Plaidy, and Hans von Bülow. Two of her older siblings also attended the conservatory. During this time, her father returned to England while her mother stayed with her children, a situation which continued throughout the early part of Rogers’s career. Besides piano, Rogers also studied harmony, part writing, violin, cello, and voice while in Leipzig. Composition classes were not open to women at the conservatory until 1859, after conservatory administrators heard the string quartet Rogers had composed at the age of 13. Her classmate, Arthur Sullivan, copied parts for her