Gender and Music

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Repertoire Bibliographies

Repertoire bibliographies list compositions for specific instruments or ensembles. This section contains sample items in the Music Library collection. This list does not represent all repertoire bibliographies available from Western Libraries.

Women Composers: a checklist of works for the solo voice by Miriam Stewart-Green
Call Number: ML128.W7S85 1980
Suffragist Sheet Music by Danny O. Crew; Coline Jenkins-Sahlin (Foreword by)
Call Number: ML128.W7C74 2002
"This is an exhaustive reference work of sheet music published in the United States from the late 18th century to the year after adoption of the 19th amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote."
Piano Music by Black Women Composers by Helen Walker-Hill
Call Number: ML128.P3W3 1992
"Proceeding from a desire to use music of black women composers in her piano performance and teaching, Helen Walker-Hill has dedicated herself to uncovering this material, utilizing secondary sources and numerous archives, conducting interviews with composers, and engaging in voluminous correspondence with individuals and institutions. The result is the most comprehensive catalog of music composed by African American women to date."
Keyboard Music by Women Composers by Joan Meggett
Call Number: ML128.W7M43 1981
Loud and clear : a guide to levelled piano music by women composers in the 20th and 21st centuries by Olivia Adams
Call Number: ML128.W7 A33 2021
"Loud and Clear is a resource guide for pianists and teachers which includes nearly 4,000 levelled music titles by women composers from Preparatory to Diploma levels, complete with timelines, graphics, bios, fun facts, and new research data on women in music conservatories."
Organ and Harpsichord Music by Women Composers by Adel Heinrich
Call Number: ML128.O6O73 1991
"This reference work catalogs music for organ and harpsichord written by more than 700 women composers from 40 countries... Two appendices list a large number of women who have either written music for organ and harpsichord with no specific titles known, or have performed on one or both instruments."
Violin Music by Women Composers by Rose M. Johnson
Call Number: ML128.W7J63 1989
"Provides convenient access to a body of solo, recital, concerto, and chamber music literature that will enrich the repertoire of the violinist. Includes a biographies section which briefly summarizes the life and work of women composers from the Baroque to 20th century American and International... Violin Music by Women Composers is a unique, up-to-date, and thoughtfully organized resource."
Guitar Music by Women Composers by Kristan Aspen; Janna MacAuslan
Call Number: ML128.G8M33 1997
"A practical guide for guitarists searching for new repertoire that includes women composers, this unique work lists musical works by instrumentation followed by biographies of each composer."
Catalogue of flute music by women composers by Vilma Campitelli, compiler
Call Number: ML128.F7 C36 2019
"The first major work with information about the flute repertoire composed by women gives information for 15,000 titles compositions written for three thousand four hundred ensembles or instrumental combinations and names and information for 2800 women composers in 100 countries."

Composers

Library catalogue records do not identify individual composers or compositions by race or ethnicity and rarely assign gender. You may wish to identify composers or compositions of interest using the following resources, and then search Omni

Canadian Music Centre
The CMC catalogue has a filter for composer gender.
The Composers Equity Project
(linked PDF) - by Chamber Music America - "A Database of ALAANA*, Women, and Gender Non-Conforming Composers" - "*Chamber Music America uses the acronym ALAANA to indicate composers who identify as African/Black, Latinx, Asian/South Asian, Arab/Middle Eastern, and Native American"
DONNE | The BIG LIST of Women Composers
An extensive list of women composers, by time period, among other resources for discovering works by women composers.
HathiTrust - Women Composers Collection
A collection of mostly 19th- and early 20th-century musical scores by women composers held at the University of Michigan Music Library.
The Institute for Composer Diversity
Includes Composer Diversity Database and Works Diversity Database
New Muses Project
"...hosts a new, exciting, and straightforward way to learn about underrepresented composers from throughout classical music history. Our unique search tool generates curated recommendations of composers to explore based on the user’s current composer interests."
A Seat at the Piano
"Promoting Inclusion in Piano Repertoire" - Scores, Recordings, Leveling - "A resource for pianists, pedagogues, and curious music appreciators to explore."
Women Composers by Time Period | Oxford Music Online

A Selection of Repertoire in Western Libraries' Collections

Lieder by women composers of the classic era by Barbara Garvey Jackson; Hidemi Matsushita
Call Number: M1619 .L55 1987
Black women composers : twentieth century music for piano and strings by Helen Walker-Hill
Call Number: M229.B533 2003
Women Composers by Martha F. Schleifer (Editor); Sylvia Glickman (Editor)
Call Number: M2 .W8624 1996
Eighteenth century women composers for the harpsichord or piano by Barbara Harbach
Call Number: M21 .E34 1992
Anthology of Latin American and Iberian Art Songs by Women Composers by Patricia Caicedo
Call Number: M1619 .L38 2020
Nineteenth century English art songs. by Sophie Fuller
Call Number: M1619 .N56 2001
Night thoughts: for flute, cello, and piano by Yi Chen
Call Number: M322.C54N5 2004
Lieder by Saint Hildegard Saint, Pudentiana Barth
Call Number: M2 .H62B4
Publication Date: 1969
Il primo libro de madrigali: für zwei Stimmen und Basso Continuo by Barbara Strozzi
Call Number: M1529.3.S77 op.1 1993
The collected works by Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre
Call Number: M3 .J339 2005
Trio : for violin, violoncello and piano. op. 17 by Clara Schumann
Call Number: M312.S376 op.17 2000z
Symphonies nos. 1 and 3 by Florence Price; Rae Linda Brown (Editor); Wayne Shirley (Editor)
Call Number: M2.3.U5R4 v.66 2008
Concerto no. 1, for piano and orchestra by Violet Archer
Call Number: M1010.A733 no.1
Publication Date: 1979

Finding More: Music by women composers (scores)

This subject heading applies mostly to anthologies of works by various women composers, not scores of individual works, so it does not retrieve all relevant items in Western Libraries' collection.

Scores and Sheet Music

Visit our Finding Music (by instrument) and Sheet Music - Online Resources pages.