Dear Clara fans,
I have the best news today! A book deal announcement will soon be on Publishers Marketplace…
I’m writing a new Clara Schumann biography for Pegasus Books entitled MADAME COMPOSER, to be published in late 2026 / early 2027. I’m so grateful to Pegasus Books, to publisher Jessica Case, and my most excellent agent, Elias Altman at MMQ, for signing onto #TeamClara and for believing in my work.
I am overjoyed at the privilege—thoroughly daunted by the responsibility—and so grateful to you all for your support. Without #TeamClara, this would not have happened.
Why a new biography of Clara Schumann?
If you want to know what’s going to be in the book, the best summary is basically this Clara Schumann Channel blog post—except WAY more detailed and comprehensive with MUCH better writing, editing, packaging, citations etc.!
I have many lofty goals for this book, most relating to two objectives. I want…
A book which is for the public—not just for musicians but for music lovers and history enthusiasts, for general bookstores and public libraries.
A book which asserts Clara Schumann as first and foremost—from the title itself—as a COMPOSER.
Clara Schumann started as a composer and loved composing more than anything. She resisted defining herself as a composer primarily because it would be “arrogant” to call herself by a man’s profession. And, call me arrogant if you like, but it won’t stop me from calling her a great composer. Without her works, the classical canon is incomplete.
I know many people agree with me whole-heartedly on this. If you’re skeptical, I ask the opportunity to prove it to you with my book.
What’s in a new biography of Clara Schumann?
I’ll be sharing more details about the book on its road to publication over the next 2 years. (I know the wait is long, but I promise it’ll be worth it!!!)
But some hints. . .
1) I will be giving as much credit as possible to the researchers whose coattails I am riding. This book would not be possible without the decades of work which has been done before—the work of countless scholars which I admire so highly. The primary contributors will be in my book’s epilogue, which delves into the transformation of Clara’s legacy in the 20th century.
2) I will include other women composers in every chapter—Clara’s women predecessors, contemporaries, and those who came after her. Women composers were all over the place in 19th-century Germany, as they always have been in every place and era.
3) This book will be a study in a culture and an artform. To understand what a powerful cultural figure Clara was, to appreciate the change she affected and the obstacles she encountered, will require ample 19th-century context. There’ll be lots on German Romanticism, the status of music as an artform, and the philosophies of misogyny and feminism at the time.
4) I will do my very best not to put Clara on a pedestal. My hope is to humanize both her and the canon composer men in her life. I admire Clara deeply, but she was also a very flawed person who made many mistakes—i.e. a relatable human.
A word of gratitude
This book deal is a community achievement—I mean that. What gave me the authority to be the person to write this book, to prove Clara is popular enough to warrant a new book, is your support of this platform and your curiosity about Clara. If you are on this list now, you will always be one of my OG supporters. As this list grows from all the publicity surrounding the book, I will not forget you.
This happened because of you—and you will forever have my gratitude.
Moving forward
It’ll take all of 2025 for me to write it and most of 2026 to edit it and prepare it for publication. But come publication time, I’m going to need your help. Doubters don’t think a biography about a woman composer will sell.
We can and will prove them wrong!
It’s going to take a community effort. Sales depend as much on your word-of-mouth support as it will on me and my social media. Go #TeamClara!
You’ll be hearing from me much less often in 2025. Filtering down Clara’s enormous life into 400 pages will be a monumental task. *cries!* But come 2026, I will be back online with a vengeance!
In the meantime, if you haven’t yet, read Leah Broad’s QUARTET and look for Julia Conrad’s SEX AND THE SYMPHONY next year.
Cheers to progress, #TeamClara!
You have given me a reason to get close to 90 years in order to read your book. Keep going.
Success! And by the way, on the Schumann Portal I found this:
https://www.schumann-portal.de/aktuelles.html
ARD movie about Clara. Yes, there is geo blocking. But may be you have vpn.