Emilie Frances Bauer

Emilie Frances Bauer was born in Walla Walla, Washington, the daughter of Jacques Bauer (1834-1890) and Julia Heyman Bauer. She may have been the first Jewish child ever born in Walla Walla.[1] Both parents were immigrants from Alsace; her father was a shopkeeper and her mother a teacher.[2] She studied music with her father, with Miguel Espinosa in San Francisco, and at the Paris Conservatoire. She was the older sister and first piano teacher of composer Marion Bauer.[3][4]

Bauer taught piano in Walla Walla and Portland, Oregon. She was a music critic for Portland Oregonian, editor for the Musical Courier, music teacher in Boston (1896), editor for The Musical Leader (1900–1926), editor of a women's page in The Etude (1902–1903), critic for the New York Evening Mail (1906-1912), weekly contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle, Portland Oregonian and the Concertgoer.[3][5] While she was living in San Francisco in 1912, she gave a lecture series on music.[6]

Bauer sometimes wrote and composed music under the masculine pen-name "Francisco di Nogero". Among her known compositions were the songs "My Love is a Muleteer" (1917)[7] and "Our Flag in France" (1917).[8] For the latter song, she donated the royalties to the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris.[9] In 1918, she and her sister were guests of honor at a musicale hosted by the Brooklyn Music School Settlement.[10]

Emilie Frances Bauer died in 1926, aged 61 years, in New York City.[5] In February 2020, the Fort Walla Walla Museum held a program of music by Emilie Frances Bauer and Marion Bauer.[11]