One spent her life in an obscure hilltop monastery in the German Rhineland, where she wrote music that lay mostly forgotten for 800 years.

Another, one of the great piano virtuosos of her day, raised eight children and focused on helping her husband build his reputation as a composer, at the expense of her own.

Yet another emerged from prison triumphant, ready to build a musical career brighter than before.

All achieved distinction as composers, yet in a world attuned mostly to the doings of men, their work was often overlooked.

But not in this hour . . . as eight women take center stage, each with a memorable story behind her life and music.

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