Elisabetta de Gambarini was an English musician and artist active in the 18th century. She was talented in many areas, including singing as a mezzo-soprano, playing the organ, harpsichord, and piano, conducting orchestras, and painting. Her music style fits between the late Baroque and Classical periods. She was known for being skilled in both performing and composing music for different instruments and voice. She is noted for composing music that sounded more like songs than typical instrumental pieces. A significant achievement for her was being the first woman in Britain to publish a collection of keyboard music. Her early works included collections dedicated to important figures, such as the Lady Viscountess Howe and the Prince of Wales. This showed how her reputation grew as she shared and performed her music publicly. Born on September 7, 1730, in Middlesex, England, Elisabetta came from a family with Italian roots; her father was a nobleman from Lucca. Her mother might have been a tutor for nobility, though this is not clearly known. She was the third child out of four but the only one to survive into adulthood. Early in her career, she sang in Handel's oratorios like Occasional Oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus, and Joseph and his Brethren, with her name also linked to Handel’s Samson and Messiah. By 1748, Elisabetta was well recognized and was able to organize her own benefit concert where she performed her compositions, both singing and playing the organ. That same year, she published two volumes of her music. The collections included her well-known "Six Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord" as well as "Lessons for the Harpsichord Intermix’d with Italian and English Songs." These successes highlight her early and notable contributions to British music as a female composer.