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From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman)
Newsgroups: soc.women,comp.music,rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Women Composers
Message-ID: <1991Mar20.185059.30271@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 91 18:50:59 GMT
References: <7204@ecs.soton.ac.uk> <1991Mar20.150028.24567@tc.fluke.COM>
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Lines: 33

Off the top of my head - 

Diamanda Galas - avante-garge stuff, usually lumped in with indie rock
Nadia Boulanger - conductor, composer, most famous as teacher (20th century)
Lily Boulanger - younger sister, composer, died young
Theo Musgrave - One of the best post-Britten British composers.  Has written a 
number of operas, one, "Mary, Queen of Scotts" is recorded.  Also concertos etc.
Ruth Crawford Seeger - Pete Seeger's step-mum.  Graduated from Barnard.  Wrote
	mostly during the 20s-40s, then turned to collecting fold songs.
Several of the composers in the "Minnisota Composers Forum" are women (they put
out a record or two each year.)  I seem to remember the name Libby Ellis.
There is a Dutch composer, last name of Meelenk (or something like that).
If you have access to a music library with open stacks, you might try just browsing.
You could also get a copy of OPUS (the replacement for the classical Schwann
guide.) There is also a boxed set of women's classical music called something like
"Women's Work".  You might also try looking at CRS (Composer's recording series)
records, they present works by real living composers, some of whom are women.
There are a lot of women doing new age stuff, most of it as bad as that done by
most of the men.  Of all the ones I mentioned, I like Galas the best (most of
her recordings are available on "Stumm" records, I'm not sure who the US
distributer is.  She is French of Greek descent.)  Nadia Boulanger was probably
the most important, she taught almost everyone of any importance.  Theo
Musgrave is probably the closest we will come in the forseeable future to a
"great" woman composer.  (That is a great composer who is also a woman.)
(IMHO one of the marks of a great composer is his/her impact on music, the
quality of the best of the works, the quality of the bulk of the works, and the
breadth of forms.  Since c. 1950, only Bernstein has managed to produce, and
have recorded, that breadth of work.  With the increasing academization of
music, it is unlikely that one will find a composer who can write, and have
recorded, a body of work similar to that of Stravinsky,	Shostokovich, or
Britten.  Well, one can hope...

ami silberman - janitor of lunacy