Amy Marcy Cheney was born in Henniker, New Hampshire, a musical prodigy who would become one of America's leading composers.
Amy Marcy Cheney was born on September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire, to Charles Abbott Cheney and Clara Imogene Marcy Cheney. From infancy she displayed extraordinary musical gifts: she reportedly could hum forty tunes correctly by the age of one, and taught herself to read at age three.
By age four she was composing simple waltzes in her head and could play piano duets by ear. Her mother initially restricted her access to the piano, fearing overstimulation, but eventually relented, and Amy began formal piano study at age six. This early precociousness set the stage for a career that would defy the era's expectations for women, particularly in the male-dominated field of composition.
Her family moved to Boston when she was a teenager to allow her greater access to musical training, though she was largely self-taught in composition, studying scores of the great masters independently rather than through formal composition instruction abroad, which was then customary for serious composers. This unconventional education would later be cited as remarkable given the scope and sophistication of her mature works, including the Gaelic Symphony, the first symphony published by an American woman.