Mel Bonis (born Mélanie Hélène Bonis) was a French composer of the late Romantic period, born and largely based in Paris, where she studied at the Paris Conservatoire under César Franck alongside classmates including Claude Debussy. Adopting the androgynous pen name “Mel Bonis” to help her work gain acceptance, she produced over 300 compositions spanning solo and four-hand piano music, organ works, chamber music, songs, choral pieces, and a mass. Arthritis left her bedridden in her later years, and she died in Sarcelles, near Paris, in 1937.

Praised in her lifetime by Camille Saint-Saëns and active as secretary of the Société des compositeurs de musique, Bonis fell into obscurity after the First World War along with many of her female contemporaries. Her music has undergone a substantial modern revival since the late twentieth century, with orchestral recordings on labels such as CPO and Chandos and a comprehensive eleven-volume critical edition, establishing her as an important rediscovered voice of French late-Romanticism.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Bonis