Luisa Casagemas y Coll was a Spanish violinist, singer and composer. She was born in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

 and studied composition with Francisco Gavanch and violin with Agustin Torello. She began composing at an early age and made her debut as a composer in 1893 with a symphonic poem.

Casagemas' opera Schiava e regina won a prize at the World Columbian Expostion in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in 1892, and was performed before the Spanish royal family in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 in 1894. Afterward Casagemas sang her own compositions at the salon of novelist Emilia Pardo de Bazan, and he introduced her to musical and literary society.

Works

Casagemas composed sacred and instrumental works and a few songs. Selected works include:

• Crepusculo for orchestra (1893)
• Schiava e regina, opera (1879–1881)
• I briganti; Montserrat, opera (op. 227)