Mabel Wheeler Daniels was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer, conductor, and teacher. She attended Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

 and studied with George Whitefield Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick

George Whitefield Chadwick was an American composer. Along with Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what can be called the New England School of American composers of the late 19th century—the generation before Charles Ives...

 before traveling to Germany for further study with Ludwig Thuille

Ludwig Thuille

Ludwig Thuille was a German composer and teacher, numbered for a while among the leading operatic composers of the 'Munich School', whose most famous representative was Richard Strauss.-Biography:...

 in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

. Upon her return to the United States she became head of the music department at Simmons College

Simmons College

Simmons College may refer to:*Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black college in Louisville, Kentucky*Simmons College , a liberal arts college in Boston, Massachusetts...

, serving there until 1918. She continued working until late in her life, and was given honorary degree

Honorary degree

An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...

s by both Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

 and Tufts University

Tufts University

Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...

. Much of her output was choral, though she wrote a handful of operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s and some orchestral and chamber works.

Reference

• "Mabel Wheeler Daniels". In David Mason Greene, Biographical Dictionary of Composers. Garden City, New York; Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985.