Mel Bonis

Mélanie Hélène Bonis, known as Mel Bonis, was a French late-Romantic composer, born to a Parisian lower-middle-class family. She taught herself piano before formally studying at the Paris Conservatoire with notable professors including César Franck. Despite parental opposition and an arranged marriage to businessman Albert Domange, Bonis composed over 300 works, including piano, organ, chamber, vocal, and orchestral music. Her affair with poet Amédée Landély Hettich resulted in an illegitimate child. After her husband's death, she raised their daughter. Bonis continued to compose despite obscurity after WWI and arthritis in later life, dying in Sarcelles at 79.