We hope that you are able to participate in International Women’s Day and #DayWithoutAWoman in whatever way you can.  Stay home.  Wear red.  And tune in to the different radio stations that are making it a point to include works by women composers throughout today.

 

Second Inversion has committed to playing 24 hours of works by women composers today.  Stream online here.  You can also read advice from 50 contemporary women composers – a fantastic read!

 

WQXR out of New York City has included several features on their blog related to women in music leading up to International Women’s Day.  Included is a conversation with Kaija Saariaho (which you can also listen to below), a list of 18 Women Composers You Should Know (from Hildegard to Jennifer Higdon – with several long neglected women in between!), and Seven Women Conductors Who Deserve Attention (who readers of this blog will already be familiar with).

The station is also committed to including works by women throughout today’s broadcasts (though not only playing works by women composers).  In fact, the posted playlists for this morning show what we aspire the future of classical music programming to look like – music by women simply included alongside the works by their male counterparts in a far more equal spacing than we typically see.  We are all looking forward to the day when we don’t need a designated holiday to justify inclusion!  Listen in here.

 

BBC Radio 3 is also committed to performing works by women composers throughout the day.  The full listing of programming is available here – but highlights include the world premiere of a new work by Kate Whitley commissioned by the BBC featuring the words of Malala Yousafzai from her 2013 United Nations speech.

There are also several excellent articles worth reading: new, large-scale recording projects that will provide new recordings of forgotten works by women composers throughout history in a partnership between scholars and BBC Radio; empowering feminist anthems (beyond Smyth’s March of the Women); archival recordings of interviews with women composers compiled through years of broadcasts –  including Nadia Boulanger, Elisabeth Lutyens, Rebecca Clarke, and Elizabeth Macovnchy, as well as contemporary voices.

Listen live all day through the BBC Radio 3 website, or tune in to the curated playlist shared on Spotify.