Carolina Amanda Erika Maier (Maier-Röntgen by marriage) was born on 20 February 1853 in Landskrona and died on 15 July 1894 in Amsterdam, where she lived following her marriage in 1880 to the pianist-composer Julius Röntgen (1854−1932).

She studied at the educational institution of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm between 1869 and 1872, and in 1872 became Sweden’s first-ever female Director of Music. In Leipzig between 1873 and 1876, she studied violin with Engelbert Röntgen and harmony and composition with Carl Reinecke and Ernst Friedrich Richter.