CHAPMAN, Lylian M

Lylian M. Chapman, whose name also appears as Lillian M. Chapman, was a woman composer and songwriter active in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. Very little biographical information about her has survived. Major music catalogues do not currently provide a verified birthplace, nationality, or dates of birth and death; IMSLP consequently lists her simply as fl. 1903 and explicitly notes that further biographical information is needed. IMSLP
Her earliest work that I could document is You’re a Saucy Baby (1899), for which she wrote both the words and music. The New York Public Library preserves a copy of the original sheet music, where her name is printed as Lillian M. Chapman. A recent scholarly database of women song composers treats “Lillian M. Chapman” and “Lylian M. Chapman” as variant forms referring to the same composer. New York Public Library
Chapman is particularly associated with Echoes of the Congo, a piano work published in 1903 by Whitney Warner Publishing Co., with an arrangement by Carl Frolich. A copy survives in the Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music at the Smithsonian Institution, where it is catalogued among ragtime and music by women composers. Sheet Music Plus
She also composed songs to texts by Thomas C. McDonald, including The Boys in Blue Parade To-Day and Where the Old Potomac Flows. The latter was published in New York by Howley-Dresser Co. in 1904 for voice and piano