Talma, Louise (b Arcachon, France, 31 Oct 1906; d Saratoga Springs, NY, 13 Aug 1996). Composer and pianist of French birth. She studied at the Institute of Musical Art, New York (1922-30); at the Fontainebleau School of Music (summers 1926-39), where her teachers included ISIDORE PHILIPP (piano) and NADIA BOULANGER (composition); and at New York (BMus 1931) and Columbia (MA 1933) universities. She taught at Hunter College, CUNY (1928-79), and was the first American faculty member at the Fontainebleau School (1936). She became a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony in 1943 and holds the lifetime record for residencies there. Her many awards include two Guggenheim fellowships (1946, 1947), becoming the first woman to receive two; a Senior Fulbright Fellowship (1955-6); the Sibelius Medal for Composition from the Harriet Cohen International Awards, London (1963); and election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1974), the first woman to be so honored. Her opera, The Alcestiad, was the first by an American woman to be performed in a major European opera house (1962, Frankfurt).
