Women Composers

* 1968 in Italy

Emanuela Ballio graduated in composition from G. ­Verdi Conservatory in Milan under U. Rotondi’s guidance. She studied electronic and film music and was awarded an advanced degree in composition with F. Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia in Rome. Her curios­ity led her to write for orchestra, choir, solo instruments and unusual ensembles, such as accordion quartet, recorder ensemble and military band. She has won many awards in national and international composition competi­tions, and her compositions have been…

* 1981 in Ukraine

Pianist and composer Marina Baranova was born into a family of musicians in Ukraine. She was accepted into the music academy for gifted children in her hometown of Kharkiv when she was only five. She went on to win first prize at the National Competition in Ukraine at the age of eleven, after which she embarked on her first concert through Finland. In 2000, she moved to Germany to stud­y at the Hanover University of Music. In each year of…

* 1866
✝ 1943

An American composer and pianist born in New Hampshire, who’s talent showed from earliest infancy. She was the first major American musician to be educated strictly in the United States and celebrated during her lifetime as the foremost woman composer of the USA. She was composing at 4, her mother began to teach her piano at 6 and at age 7 she gave her first public performances playing works of Handel and Beethoven. She was the first American Woman to…

* 1937 in Streetly, Staffordshire

Janet Beat (born 1937) studied music at Birmingham University, where she con-tinued with post-graduate research into early Italian opera for which she received the G. D. Cunningham Award. She continued her research in Italy and on her return home she had some composition tuition from Alexander Goehr and encouragement from Luigi Dallapiccola. One of the women pioneers in electronic music composition in the UK, she established the electronic music and recording studios for the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and…

Über Louise de Beaucourt ist wenig bekannt. Ihre Noten wurden zwischen 1817 und 1830 in Paris verlegt.

✝ 1896

Ida Becker was a late 19th-century Swiss composer. She was a pupil of Albert Becker and Friedrich Karl Kiel, who insisted on the pub-lication of her children’s songs when the manuscript was shown to him. Her intimate music for the home and family circle was particularly successful in her time. Ida Becker’s “Weihnachtslied” is taken from her song cycle “Lieder aus der Kinderwelt” (Songs from the world of childhood) and was published in 1881.

* 1639 in Padua oder Venedig
✝ 1719

Antonia Bembo ca. 1640 - ca. 1720 Antonia Bembo wurde um 1640 in Padua oder Venedig geboren. Der bedeutendste zeitgenössische Opernkomponist in Venedig, Francesco Cavalli, war ihr privater Lehrer und der Gitarrist und Komponist Francesco Corbetta begleitete sie beim Singen. Ludwig XIV. gewährte ihr eine lebenslange Pension die es ihr gestatte in Paris zu leben Sie fand Unterkunft im Convent Notre-Dame des Bonnes Nouvelles. Bald schon konnte sie dem König eine erste Sammlung eigener Kompositionen widmen: 'Produzione Armoniche' - 40…

* 1874
✝ 1977

".Das Berner Kammerorchester führte Adele Bloesch-Stöcker's Violinkonzert in der Französischen Kirche auf, an jenem Ort, wo es vor 66 Jahren bereits einmal erklungen war. Die Komponistin schrieb ein Werk in symphonischer Form, trotz kleinerer Besetzung. Frau Bloesch muss eine wache Zeitgenossin gewesen sein: Schalkhaft ironische Kommentare von Fagott und Trommel weisen darauf hin, dass die Komponistin sich nicht mehr im 19. Jahrhundert befindet. Der Erfolg der Wiederaufführung war nicht zuletzt Patricia Kopatchins¬kaja zu verdanken. Dass sich die phänomenale Geigerin mit…

* 1883 in Kansas City, Missouri
✝ 1975

Grace M. Bolen ist in Kansas City, Missouri geboren und aufgewachsen. Ihr bei Furore publiziertes Werk, Smoky Topaz, wurde bereits zu Ihren Lebzeiten verlegt. Wie viele andere vielversprechende Komponistinnen hörte auch Bolen auf zu komponieren, als sie 1903 heiratete. Mit ihrem dritten Ehemann Jay Davidson zog Grace nach Texas um, wo sie Klavier- und Gesangsunterricht gab und sich um ihre Tochter Frances Lorraine kümmerte. Sie wurde von FreundInnen und AnhängerInnen auch "Mama Grace" genannt.

* 1738
✝ 1767

Anna Bon is a fascinating composer among women artists in the 1700’s. Among the rarity of women composers, Anna Bon is an enigma because not much is known of her. If the addition to her name “di Venezia” indicating her birthplace sticks to speculation, because no document about her place and date of birth has been found yet. She was the daughter of the famous architect, scenographer, and Venetian painter Girolamo Bon and the Bolognese singer Rosa Ruvinetti, who were…

* 1945 in USA

Victoria Bond leads a dual career as composer and conductor. She has been commissioned by The American ­Ballet Theater, Houston and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, Cleve­land and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, and the Cassatt String Quartet. Her compositions have been per­formed by the Dallas Symphony, New York City ­Opera, Anchorage Opera, Irish National Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony and members of the New York ­Philharmon­ic. Bond was Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Her opera about Clara Schumann was premiered in Germany at…

* 1858 in Paris
✝ 1937 in Paris

The French composer Mel Bonis (1858-1937) came from humble origins among the Parisian petit bourgeois. She is not known to have any musical antecedents; her passion for music was quite her own. After teaching herself to play the piano, Mélanie obtained her parents’ permis-sion to attend music lessons. Thanks to her talent and willpower, she met the right people and César Franck himself made it possible for her to attend the Conservatory in Paris in 1876. She achieved brilliant results…

Sylva Bouchard-Beiers’ path to composing was not straightforward but rather that of a practising artist and songstress who, in the course of many creative years as an opera singer, frontwoman in a heavy-metal band, ensemble conductor and director, faced up to the demands of very different audiences while always remaining committed to classical music. Her foundations were in-depth music theory studies at the Hanns-Eisler Music Academy in Berlin and postgraduate music education studies in Mainz. This has been complemented by…

* 1893 in Paris
✝ 1918

This French composer was born into a musical family. Her mother Raissa Mychtesky was a singer, her father Ernest a composer and her sister Nadia music educator and conductor. In her childhood she learned to play the organ, piano, cello, violin and harp. From 1900 on Boulanger began to compose. Being too self-critical she destroyed her own works. Despite her ill health – she contracted chronic pneumonia at the age of two – she obsessed to win the coveted “Prix…

* 1951

Margaret Brandman is a respected Australian composer, performer and music educator whose career spans 40 years. Born in 1951, into a musical family Margaret naturally became fascinated by music. From the age of four she studied accordion and piano, taking up guitar and clarinet in her teens. Her music education was extremely broad, covering many styles and influences and supported by formal studies at the Sydney Conservatorium in piano, clarinet, harmony and composition. She graduated from the Conservatorium High School…

* 1964 in Kassel

Regine Brunke, born in 1964, is a composer and cellist and lives in Kassel. Ihre Mitwirkung bei experimentellen künstlerisch/kompositorischen Projekten seit den 80ziger Jahren, die Begeisterung für die bildende Kunst, die seit 1994 andauernde Tätigkeit als Cellistin des vom Kasseler Komponisten Ulli Götte gegründeten Ensembles in process (Modern Minimal Music),der Kompositionsunterricht bei Winfried Michel, ihr musikalisches Schaffen für verschiedene professionelle Figurentheater, ihre konzeptionelle kompositorische Arbeit für verschiedene literarische Projekte sowie die von 1989 bis zum heutigen Tag währende Auseinandersetzung mit…

* 1798

Born near Vienna, Jeannette Bürde, née Milder (1799–?) received piano and vocal instruction at an early age. She performed as a pianist and singer in Berlin, where she moved following her sister Anna's appointment to the opera. In 1823 she joined the Singakademie. She studied composition with Rungenhagen and published numerous collections of songs for voice and piano. Her husband was a painter and professor at the Akademie der Künste (Arts Academy). ihr Todesdatum konnte bisher nicht ermittelt werden. Die…