Creating a more diverse repertoire for upper voices choirs

My small-scale project to make choral repertoire by historical women composers more easily accessible has led me to discover many more composers from the last 1000 years than I had previously known. Women attended the Royal Academy of Music throughout the nineteenth century and were among the very first students at the Royal College of Music when it opened in 1876. Despite prejudice against women organists, they held posts at prestigious churches and were feted for their technique. Having completed Music degrees, women took charge of the music departments in secondary schools, as well as making significant contributions to much of the editing, arranging and publishing projects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Focussing on expanding the repertoire available for upper voices, in particular, my research has enabled me to make it much easier for school, church and youth choirs to perform a more diverse selection of composers from previous centuries. This has enabled teachers and choir directors to dispel the falsely-held view that there were ‘no women composers’ in the past. This wildly inaccurate belief has been perpetuated by the many history of music books (for children and adults) which completely ignore all the thousands of composers who were not men.

I have produced modern editions of works by the following composers:

Caterina Assandra (c.1590-c.1618)

Barbara Strozzi (1619-77)

Maria Theresia von Paradis (1759-1824)

Louise Reichardt (1779-1826)

Fanny Hensel (nee Mendelssohn) (1805-47)

Clara Schumann (1819-96)

Emma Mundella (1858-96)

Amy Beach (1867-1944)

which are available here.

More can be read about my project in a short article, and representative piece of music, published by Women and Music Journal here.

For sacred music by women, please also see these two anthologies published by Multitude of Voyces: