Dora Pejačević
Croatian composer Dora Pejačević was born in Budapest on 10 September 1885 as Countess Maria Theodora Paulina Pejačević and began to learn piano from her mother. At twelve she began to compose. Although largely self-taught, she studied privately in Zagreb, Dresden and Munich, including composition from Percy Sherwood.
In 1913 she became the first ever Croatian to write a piano concerto, and her Symphony in F sharp minor is widely thought to be the first modern symphony by a Croatian composer.
Her life was rather lonely, although she met many writers and musicians, and married in 1921. She died in Munich on 5 March 1923, aged thirty-seven, about a month after the birth of her son, either from kidney failure or from complications during childbirth.
Considered a major Croatian composer, she composed over a hundred works, mostly in a late Romantic style, and her music is beginning to be recorded during the 21st century.