women in music 4

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17 Feb 2024

Romantic era[edit]

Fanny Mendelssohn, 1842, by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Maria Szymanowska (1789–1831) was a well-known Polish composer and pianist. She wrote in many of the same genres as fellow Pole Frederic Chopin (1810–1849). Szymanowska maintained connections with several famous nineteenth-century people, including Gioacchino Rossini, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's greatest poet.
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847) was one of the best-known women composers of the 1800s. She showed prodigious musical ability as a child and began to write music. Even though famous visitors to her family home were equally impressed by Fanny and her brother Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny was limited by prevailing attitudes of the time toward women. Her father was tolerant, rather than supportive, of her activities as a composer. Her father wrote to her in 1820, telling her that "[m]usic will perhaps become his [i.e. Felix's] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament [in your life]."[75] Felix cautioned her against publishing her works under her own name and seeking a career in music. He wrote:

From my knowledge of Fanny I should say that she has neither inclination nor vocation for [musical] authorship. She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this. She regulates her house, and neither thinks of the public nor of the musical world, nor even of music at all, until her first duties are fulfilled. Publishing would only disturb her in these, and I cannot say that I approve of it.[76]

Clara Schumann (1819–1896) was a German composer and concert pianist who had a 61-year concert career, which changed the format and repertoire of the piano recital and the tastes of the listening public. From an early age, she had a one-hour lesson in piano, violin, singing, theory, harmony, composition, and counterpoint. In 1830, at the age of eleven, she had become a virtuoso soloist and she left on a concert tour of European cities. In the late 1830s, she performed to sell-out crowds and laudatory critical reviews. Frédéric Chopin described her playing to Franz Liszt, who came to hear one of her concerts and subsequently "praised her extravagantly" in a letter that was published in the Parisian Revue et Gazette Musicale.[77] She was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin ("Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso"), Austria's highest musical honor.[77]
She was also instrumental in changing the kind of programs expected of concert pianists. In her early career, before her marriage to Robert Schumann, she played what was then customary, mainly bravura pieces designed to showcase the artist's technique, often in the form of arrangements or variations on popular themes from operas, written by virtuosos such as Thalberg, Herz, or Henselt. As it was also customary to play one's own compositions, she included at least one of her own works in every program, works such as her Variations on a Theme by Bellini (Op. 8) and her popular Scherzo (Op. 10). Her works include songs, piano pieces, a piano concerto, a piano trio, choral pieces, and three Romances for violin and piano.

20th and 21st century[edit]

Composer Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)
Katherine Hoover (1937–2018) studied music at the University of Rochester and the Eastman School of Music, where she earned a Performance Certificate in Flute and a Bachelor's of Music in Music Theory in 1959.[78] She started publishing professional works in 1965, with her Duet for Two Violins. Hoover was the winner of the National Flute Association's Newly Published Music Competition twice, first in 1987 with her piece Medieval Suite and second in 1991 with her piece Kokopelli for solo flute. These pieces use many extended techniques for flute, such as pitch bending. Many of her works have been recorded by renowned musicians and performed in Carnegie Hall.[79]: 252–253
Joan Tower (born 1938) wrote her 1976 piece Black Topaz, which features many tonal melodies and harmonies.[80]: 134 She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from Columbia University in 1978. She was commissioned in 1979 by the American Composers Orchestra, resulting in her first orchestral work, Sequoia. This has been performed by numerous orchestras worldwide. From 1985 to 1988 Tower was the composer-in-residence at the St. Louis Symphony. In 1990 she was the first woman to win the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, which included a prize of $150,000. Since then, Tower has been the composer-in-residence at numerous music festivals, including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival. Tower has been a professor of music at Bard College in New York since 1982 and is considered one of the most influential women composers of the 20th century.[79]: 278–280
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (born 1939) received her doctorate in composition from Juilliard and was the first woman to ever achieve this. The same year, she won a gold medal at the International Composition Competition in Italy. In 1983 Zwilich made history again, becoming the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Symphony No. 1. Since this success, she has received many commissions. Her piece Millennium has been performed by twenty-seven orchestras since its premiere in 2000. She has been the Francis Eppes Professor of Music at Florida State University since 1999.[79]: 288–290 Zwilich is known to have an 'eclectic millennial voice' in her compositions, utilizing a clear design and rich timbres. Though her music was originally very dissonant and influenced by the Second Viennese School, her style became more emotional after the death of her husband.[80]: 179
Libby Larsen (born 1950) earned her Master of Music in 1975 from the University of Minnesota and her PhD from the same school in 1978. In 1973 she co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now known as the American Composers Forum.[81] Larsen was the composer-in-residence at the Minnesota Orchestra from 1983 to 1987. Larsen composed over 220 works, including orchestra, dance, opera, choral, theater, chamber, and solo repertoire. Her pieces have been performed across the United States and Europe. Larsen is a strong supporter of contemporary music and female musicians, and she won a Grammy Award for her CD The Art of Arleen Auger in 1994. Larsen won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000 and published her book The Concert Hall That Fell Asleep and Woke Up as a Car Radio in 2007.[80]: 242–253 [79]: 256–258
Jennifer Higdon (born 1962) earned an MA and PhD from the University of Philadelphia in 1994. Higdon has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, International League of Women Composers, and others. Her 1996 work Shine was named Best Contemporary Piece by USA Today.[79]: 252–253 Of Higdon's many pieces, blue cathedral is most frequently performed. In 2010, Higdon won the Grammy award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto. Also in 2010 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Violin Concerto, premiered by Hilary Hahn.[82]
Additional female composers are listed below. Some are also performers (e.g. Agnes Tyrrell, Amy Beach and Verdina Shlonsky were noted pianists). For a full list, see List of female composers by birth year.

Agnes Tyrrell (1846–1883)
Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)
Amy Beach (1867–1944)
Dora Pejačević (1885–1923)
Florence Price (1887–1953)
Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979)
Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)
Verdina Shlonsky (1905–1990)
Imogen Holst (1907–1984)
Violet Archer (1913–2000)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940)
Thea Musgrave (born 1928)
Sofia Gubaidulina (born 1931)

Instrumental performers[edit]

Popular music[edit]

Individuals and bandleaders[edit]

Suzi Quatro is a singer, bassist and bandleader. When she launched her career in 1973, she was one of the few prominent women instrumentalists and bandleaders.
Women have a high prominence in many popular music styles as singers. However, professional women instrumentalists are uncommon in popular music, especially in rock genres such as heavy metal. "[P]laying in a band is largely a male homosocial activity, that is, learning to play in a band is largely a peer-based... experience, shaped by existing sex-segregated friendship networks.[7]: 101–102 As well, rock music "is often defined as a form of male rebellion vis-à-vis female bedroom culture."[7]: 102 In popular music, there has been a gendered "distinction between public (male) and private (female) participation" in music.[7]: 102 "[S]everal scholars have argued that men exclude women from bands or from the bands' rehearsals, recordings, performances, and other social activities."[7]: 104 "Women are mainly regarded as passive and private consumers of allegedly slick, prefabricated – hence, inferior – pop music..., excluding them from participating as high status rock musicians."[7]: 104 One of the reasons that there are rarely mixed gender bands is that "bands operate as tight-knit units in which homosocial solidarity – social bonds between people of the same sex... – plays a crucial role."[7]: 104 In the 1960s pop music scene, "[s]inging was sometimes an acceptable pastime for a girl, but playing an instrument...simply wasn't done."[29]
"The rebellion of rock music was largely a male rebellion; the women—often, in the 1950s and '60s, girls in their teens—in rock usually sang songs as personæ utterly dependent on their macho boyfriends...."[83] Philip Auslander says that "Although there were many women in rock by the late 1960s, most performed only as singers, a traditionally feminine position in popular music." Though some women played instruments in American all-female garage rock bands, none of these bands achieved more than regional success. So they "did not provide viable templates for women's on-going participation in rock."[84]: 2–3 In relation to the gender composition of heavy metal bands, it has been said that "[h]eavy metal performers are almost exclusively male"[85] "[a]t least until the mid-1980s"[86] apart from "exceptions such as Girlschool."[85] However, "now [in the 2010s] maybe more than ever–strong metal women have put up their dukes and got down to it",[87] "carv[ing] out a considerable place for [them]selves."[88] When Suzi Quatro emerged in 1973, "no other prominent female musician worked in rock simultaneously as a singer, instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader."[84]: 2 According to Auslander, she was "kicking down the male door in rock and roll and proving that a female musician ... and this is a point I am extremely concerned about ... could play as well if not better than the boys."[84]: 3
A number of these artists are also sang and wrote songs, but they are listed here for their instrumental skills:

All-female bands and girl groups[edit]

An all-female band is a musical group in popular music genres such as blues, jazz and related genres which is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. For example, vocalist groups Girls Aloud are referred to as a "girl band" in OK! magazine[89] and The Guardian,[90] while Girlschool are termed a "girl group" at IMDb[91] and Belfast Telegraph.[92] While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop bands, all-female bands are less common.
A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term girl group is also used in a narrower sense within English-speaking countries to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s between the decline of early rock and roll and the British Invasion, many of whom were influenced by doo-wop style.[93][94] All-female bands are sometimes also called girl groups.[95] These all-female bands were difficult to maintain, as many earlier groups struggled with replacing female musicians once they departed, and some were forced to open the bands to men to avoid quitting.[96]