Composing the 'woman' composer

There was a time, not so long ago, when the names of women composers were virtually unknown. Second-wave feminism in the 1970s marks a dynamic moment when this begins to change. A women’s music history is gradually assembled and establishes the fact that music composition is not solely a male domain. It shows that women are not only present but are worthy of celebration in that domain. Pendle’s annotated bibliography on women’s music, compiled in the first decade of the twenty-first century, attests to this fact. Its verdict is that women’s music has blossomed into a thriving field of knowledge. Earlier than Pendle, Wood observes that women composers ‘have become more visible, more accomplished, and more numerous’. But, as some researchers are also warning, it is still too early to be complacent: women’s music destined for the concert hall struggles to be heard. Musicological work on women’s music therefore remains an ongoing necessity: it documents women’s music to ensure its survival; it examines the issues preventing women from participating fully in the public world of composing; and it reports on the cultural conditions that enable or disable the music’s production.