Elizabeth Vercoe's Herstory IV is her third composition for the mandolin (her Electric Bebop is included in the Collection, Four Centuries of Solo mandolin Music), the fourth in her series of Herstory pieces, all settings of poems by women, and a major contribution to the mandolin repertoire.

The two songs by Mozart with mandolin accompaniment ("Die Zufriedenheit" and "Komm Liebe Zither") are among the gems of the mandolin repertoire, but there was never much else to program with them. I began researching the existing repertoire for mandolin and voice, wrote some songs of my own, and started asking my composer friends to write more songs.

Written in 1997, Herstory IV combines of two related poems by May Swenson, entitled “The Key to Everything” and “All That Time,” for mezzo or soprano with either mandolin or marimba. It is a highly dramatic work, with very idiomatic mandolin writing, including an instrumental quote from her first mandolin composition, A la fin – tout Seul, for mandolin and optional piano.

 Elizabeth Vercoe has been a composer at the St. Petersburg Spring Music Festival in Russia, the Cité International des Arts in Paris, and the MacDowell Colony, and held the Acuff Chair of Excellence at Austin Peay State University. She has had performances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall and Tanglewood, in Thailand, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand and has won many awards, commissions, and publications as well as grants from the Artists Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her music is published by Noteworthy Sheet Music, Certosa Verlag (Germany), Neil Gladd Publications and Arsis Press and is recorded on the Owl, Centaur, Navona and Capstone labels. A dissertation (J. Capaldo, Elizabeth Vercoe: Composing Her Story) about her vocal music is available online.