Born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire, Beach was one of America’s most prolific and successful composers. She was also one of the first women whose musical compositions were as highly regarded as those produced by men. While she composed works in almost every genre, she was best known during her lifetime for her well-crafted songs and short piano pieces, many of which were an important part of the standard recital repertoire of the time. After beginning a concert career as a pianist at the age of sixteen, she temporarily ended her performing aspirations at eighteen when she married the Boston surgeon Dr Henry Harris Aubrey Beach (1843-1910). Her married years were her most prolific period of compositional activity.

Following the deaths of her husband and mother in 1910 and 1911, Beach sailed to Europe, where she expanded her reputation as a performer and composer.  She gave concerts throughout Germany, performing many of her instrumental works and introducing some of her songs to German audiences.

Beach returned to the United States in 1914, making New York City her home. She spent each concert season performing and promoting her works throughout North America. Beginning in 1921, she did most of her composing in the summer as a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, an artists’ retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Her active membership at Saint Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York City inspired her to compose sacred music.

Highly intelligent, Beach incorporated her varied interests and experiences into her compositions. Largely self-taught in composition, she was the first American woman musician to receive all of her training in the United States and to write in the larger forms. Her work has always been evaluated by critics on the basis of its merit and her intellect, while her talent for composition has consistently been acknowledged. She is a transitional figure between the composers of the Second New England School, which includes Horatio Parker and Edward MacDowell, and later American song composers such as Charles Ives. In contrast to other American composers of the time, Beach achieved recognition in both the United States and abroad.