WPA News Digest – February 10, 2025

by Kathleen McGowan | Feb 10, 2025

News to start your week! Marin Alsop and Dalia Stasevska will both make their conducting debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic. Alsop will lead the orchestra from February 20–22, and Stasevska from February 27 – March 1. Alsop’s program will feature four composers...

Classical Music Moonlighters

by sarah | Mar 24, 2015

The Guardian has a great piece up highlighting “Classical Music Moonlighters”. The list of composers who worked on music after they finished their day jobs includes: Ethel Smyth (who was a composer first and turned to writing books – including a...

Hildegard gets Top Billing at Musicology Conference

by Liane Curtis | Nov 3, 2014

The American Musicological Society (together with the Society for Music Theory) is holding its annual conference next week in Milwaukee, WI.  We are happy to note that the AMS President’s Endowed Plenary Lecture (Nov. 6) is a fascinating report on an interdisciplinary...

Hildegard’s Feast Day

by sarah | Sep 17, 2014

Today is the Feast day of one of the best known women composers – and, typically, the only one to be included in a music history textbook – is Hildegard of Bingen. A 12th century abbess in Germany, Hildegard is remembered for being one of the first women...

NPR’s “Biggest Badass Composers”

by sarah | Jul 6, 2011

NPR’s Deceptive Cadence picked up on a twitter feed recently questioning which composer is the “biggest badass”, with qualifications to include drugs, sex, guts and politics. The list of composers included (surprise!!!) no women. Though the list, which was compiled...