Ah! Love, I Shall Find Thee

Gena Branscombe was a major figure in song writing from the turn of the century through the 1930s, the period when the solo recital was a viable venue for the professional singer. Gena grew up immersed from an early age in the musical life in the small Canadian town of Picton, Ontario. She studied with local teachers, finished high school with honors at 15, and then went to Chicago where she enrolled in the Chicago Musical College as a scholarship student of Rudolph Ganz. Basically on her own from age 16 onwards, she taught piano students and accompanied singers to supplement her income. In 1901, she joined the Musical College as a piano teacher. In 1907, she moved to Walla Walla, Washington, to establish the music department and teach at Whitman College. In 1909-1910, she studied in Berlin with Ganz and Englebert Humperdinck. She returned to America in 1910 and married and then settled in New York City where she and her husband had four daughters. She then moved to Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, where she began to participate in local choruses. She wrote much choral music and succeeded Mrs. H.H.A. Beach as the second president of the Society of American Women Composers. The 1930s marked the creation of the Branscombe Choral, a women's chorus. The chorus was finally disbanded in 1954, when Gena was 73 years old. She spent the rest of her life traveling with her daughters and composing. Her first songs were published in Chicago in the 1890s, while she was still a student. Her last song was published in 1957. Her greatest activity as a published song composer was between 1906 and 1922, after which her attention turned to choral works.