The violinist and composer Amanda Röntgen-Maier (1853–1894) created a sensation when she became Sweden’s first-ever female Director of the Music at the Conservatory in Stockholm in 1872. Maier decided to continue her private studies in Leipzig with the concertmaster of

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) was one of the first successful female composers in 19th century France. That opinion is not only based on 21st century assessments, but also on views expressed by her contemporaries. Robert Schumann wrote for example, “her works

Today major orchestras and artists are commissioning young women composers to write music for them. Here are three rising stars. Missy Mazzoli was selected as a featured composer by the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer’s Institute more than a decade ago. We

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944) was the first woman composer ever to be awarded with the legion d‘honneur in 1913. The composer Ambroise Thomas said, “This is not a woman who composes, but a composer who is a woman.” Chaminade was well

We are now delving into the 20th and 21st century with a few more outstanding women composers who wrote cello music. Florence Price (1887-1953), an American pianist, composer, organist, and teacher, is not only the first African American woman to

If I could take only one style of music to a deserted island it would have to be Baroque music. Music written during that period is full of drama and energy, and it can be very intimate or simply grandiose.

Musicologists have suggested that “the life of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847) is compelling proof that women’s failure to compete with men on the compositional playing-field has been the result of social prejudice and patriarchal mores, which in the nineteenth century

In his seminal study on counterpoint and fugue, Alfred Mann writes, “There is probably no branch of musical composition in which theory is more widely, one might almost say hopelessly, at variance with practice than fugue.” Basically, Mann is telling