Amy Beach was a pioneering American composer whose career unfolded at a time when women faced significant barriers in classical music. Now, pianist Joanne Polk is helping bring Beach’s music to a new generation of listeners.

Polk, a piano faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, has spent decades performing and recording Beach’s work. She’ll be joined by her husband, musicologist Jeffrey Langford, and their son, cellist Julian Langford, for a concert Saturday at the Catskill Mountain Foundation in Hunter.

Polk says she became interested in women composers after hearing the work of contemporary composer Judith Lang Zaimont in the late 1980s. That experience led her to explore the history of women in classical music — and eventually to Beach.

“I found her music not only expressive, but very idiomatic for the piano,” Polk said. “So you could tell that she was a pianist.”

Beach was a concert pianist and composer who achieved national recognition, including the 1896 premiere of her Gaelic Symphony by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But her career was constrained by the expectations of her time. After marrying a surgeon at age 18, Polk said, Beach was discouraged from performing publicly and turned increasingly to composition.

Even her published name reflected those limitations. Much of her music appeared under the name “Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.”

Polk made her first recording of Beach’s music in 1996, including the composer’s complete piano works. While the recording initially received little attention, Polk says Beach’s music is gaining popularity.

“She’s got great stuff,” Polk said. “She’s got mediocre stuff, but so do the great composers.”

Polk believes Beach was also overlooked because her romantic, tonal style fell out of favor as modernist composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg reshaped classical music.

The upcoming concert will combine live performance with historical commentary, connecting Beach’s legacy to the nation’s 250th anniversary. The program includes works inspired by nature, alongside music reflecting Beach’s broader American influences.

For Polk, the goal is to give audiences the opportunity to discover the music for themselves.

“I just feel it’s my interest and my job, in a sense, to put the music out there,” she said.