“Over the years, there have been a great many calls for diversification within the concert music community, and one of the most prevalent responses from decision-makers is that they don’t know where to find under-represented composers,” writes composer Robert Deemer on Wednesday (1/24) at NewMusicBox. “Inspired to address this issue … I took the names that were included in the comments section of my NewMusicBox column ‘A Helpful List’ and, in 2016, began to organize them. A few weeks ago, I announced that the Women Composers Database was fully operational and ready for public inspection. Using a simple Google Sheets spreadsheet, I and a team of students at the State University of New York at Fredonia had compiled a searchable and browsable database of more than 3,000 women composers that conductors, performers, educators, and researchers can use (along with a related ‘composers of color’ database that is currently being built) to aid in their pursuit of more diverse performance programming and academic curricula…. It is my sincerest hope that composers in this database receive more attention, advocacy, and performances as more programmers decide to make diversity a priority…. We update the database on a weekly basis.”
Posted January 26, 2018
Source for composite image of composers: New Music USA
