Mary Howe has been played on NTS in shows including The Opera Show, featured first on 31 August 2024. Songs played include Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring ('Jesu Bleibet Meine Freude' From Cantata No 147, BWV147).

Mary Howe (April 4, 1882 – September 14, 1964) was an American composer and pianist.

She was born Mary Carlisle in Richmond, Virginia, at the home of her maternal grandparents. She would spend her entire life in the Washington, DC area. Her family was extremely wealthy; her father, Calderon Carlisle, was a very well known and successful lawyer. This privilege ensured her private piano lessons—a symbol of status for wealthy women—with Hermione Seron, an accomplished pianist. By the time she was 18, she was regularly performing publicly, and was accepted into Baltimore’s Peabody School of Music. It was there that she began studying with Richard Burmeister, who led her to be quite accomplished on the piano. She also studied composition with Gustav Strube, Ernest Hutcheson, and Harold Randolph, and in 1933 went to Paris to study with the very famous and prestigious Nadia Boulanger.

Shortly thereafter, she began mixing with the high society of the District of Columbia. There, she met Bruce Howe, a wealthy lawyer who ensured that she would maintain her comfortable life style. She also started performing with her friend Anne Hull, their most notable performance being Mozart’s "Concerto for Two Pianos". However, she much preferred composition. She notably emulated neo-romanticism, with an unusually open mind for modernism. Her early compositions were almost exclusively for piano, as a reflection of her craft. However, she began to develop an interest in themes in nature and American themes, paving the way for some of her most famous orchestral works (which include Sand, Stars, Rock, "Three Pieces after Emily Dickinson" and "Chain Gang Song" for orchestra and chorus). Her "Chain Gang Song" was especially praised for its lack of femininity; after the chorus and orchestra called her up to bow after its first performance, a man from the audience praised the conductor for the piece and asked why the woman was bowing with the ensemble.

Later in life, Howe developed a passion for singing, and wrote music for her son, Calderon, to sing. In support of her country during World War II, she composed vigorous pieces in support of the troops, bizarrely but masterfully incorporating the texts of William Blake, which were also written for voice.

She died in 1964 at the age of 82, twelve years after the death of her husband.

Even now, Mary Howe is one of the more performed of the modern women composers. She was progressive but still popular; in her time, she was the most popular female musician in the entire Washington, DC area. Maestro Stowkowski, who conducted her famous piece “Sand”, said that it implanted in him “a new conception of staccato”. Also, “Stars” was said to have an unusual but very appropriate harp cadenza, and deepened the “sense of mystery [where] man compares his insignificance with infinity”.