Jeanne E Shaffer
American composer, singer, choir director, teacher and radio broadcaster Jeanne Butcher was born in Knoxville on 25 May 1925 and began singing at an early age. From eleven, she toured with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. She studied in Alabama and Tennessee at Samford University, Birmingham-Southern College and Vanderbilt University.
Her output includes song cycles, cantatas, musicals, organ music, music for orchestra, chamber music, a ballet and a chamber opera.
She was known as Jeanne Shaffer following her first marriage in 1944. As well as working as a choir director, organist and teacher, she was the host of the Eine Kleine Frauenmusik radio programme about female composers.
Jeanne Ellison Shaffer died on 9 April 2007, aged eighty-one.