Louise Talma, one of the foremost American neo-classical composers of the 20th century, wrote a substantial body of music covering a wide range of genres. Talma’s music shows a keen intellectual mind, but she also engages listeners at a visceral level and entertains them with her originality and quirkiness. Talma frequently combines motor energy (sometimes associated with Stravinsky) with a melancholy expression, and often creates moments of extraordinary beauty, such as in the ‘lullaby’‚ in 7 Episodes. Although there is a lightness of touch in her music that could be connected to her time in Paris as a student of Nadia Boulanger, her language is quite unique. The beauty of Talma’s slow music is exceptional.