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Teresa Carreño (1853-1917)

Teresa Carreño was born in Caracas, Venezuela on December 22, 1853. She was the granddaughter of the Venezuelan composer Jose Cayetano Carreño. Her father, Manuel Antonio Carreño, was also a musician and composer. He was largely responsible for Teresa Carreño's early musical education and the documentation of the early years of her musical career.

When she was eight years old she was taken to New York where she studied with Gottschalk. Later, she also studied in Paris with Mathias and Anton Rubinstein. Her career was particularly successful in Germany where she lived and taught for over thirty years.

Throughout her life Carreño was recognized as a pianist, composer, conductor, and singer. She wrote many compositions for piano and one String Quartet in B minor. She also spent two years in Venezuela organizing and conducting an opera company in which she also sang.

Carreño died in New York on June 12, 1917.

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Source: Sadie Stanley, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 3. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 1980.