Spencer gave her first professional recital in London at Bechstein Hall in 1910. In 1912, while living in Berlin with a Russian princess, she made news as a passenger in a "Wright machine" airplane in Germany with pilot Vsevolod Abramovich.[5]
She made her American professional debut at Carnegie Hall in 1913.[6] She lived in Berlin and Paris, and performed mostly in Europe until the beginning of World War II.[3] In August 1919, she was a soloist at the Kurhaus Concerts in Scheveningen, and was described as the first American musician to appear on Dutch concert programs after World War I.[7][8] She played at New York's Town Hall venue in 1930[9] and 1936.[10][11] She also taught piano.[12]
Her critical reception was generally positive.[13] Spencer was considered technically strong, and an expert on the works of Robert Schumann. She played at Aeolian Hall in 1919, displaying her "original taste and ample technique".[14] Of her 1930 performance at Carnegie Hall, the New York Times critic noted "a general effect of monotony in the lengthy movements of the Brahms and Schumann works", and cited a "prevailing lack of imagination" as the cause.[15]
By the time she moved back to the United States in the late 1930s, she was becoming deaf. She retrained herself as a deaf musician, and returned to a performing career after the war.[3] In 1946, she played again in New York, introduced by Edwine Behre.[16]
