Sofía Cancino de Cuevas first quartet for strings, catalogued as Op. 1. In 1940, she received an honorable mention for her symphonic poem "El gallo en Pátzcuaro" for orchestra and male choir, in a contest organized by UNAM. In 1941 she directed the presentation of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" at the Arbeu theater, with the participation of singers (baritone), Carlos Mejía (tenor), and Margarita Cueto (soprano), among others. This made her Mexico's first female conductor. In 1944 she founded the Opera School, with which she conducted "La serva padrona" by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, "Bastien und Bastienne" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and "Il matrimonio segreto" by
The Parlour reviewer in "Opera" magazine dismissed the music as "feeble in content, too long, and mis-timed in its relation to the dramatic action". The BBC, broadcasting a recording made at the Odeon Theatre, Llandudno, in November of the same year, described the première as "highly successful", and said that the opera, despite being Williams' first, displays a "confident professionalism and the theatrical awareness". The Parlour The Parlour is the only opera by the Welsh composer Grace Williams; a comic opera in one act, it is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant. Although written in 1961, it was not