by Beth Anderson-Harold as published in the IAWM Journal, Fall 1997, pp. 12-13.
If you are not yet online and are asking "Should I?" I strongly urge you to take advantage of the resources on the World Wide Web; I am sure you will experience, as I did, a sense of amazement at the quality and quantity of material available on almost any topic. To get started you might request assistance from a knowledgeable person or buy one of the many books for beginners. I have found The Internet Starter Kit, available for Macintosh, Windows and Windows 95, by Adam Engst (Hayden Books) to be helpful. If you are associated with a university, contact the computer services center which, at most universities, will offer instruction and provide whatever is necessary to get you started.
Many universities, in addition to offering email service, will provide a personal web site free of charge. If you plan to sell anything from your web page, however, be sure to obtain permission from the university. Alternatives would be doing it yourself, if you know html (a computer language), or hiring someone. The American Music Center provides such a service for its members: 30 West 26th Street, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10010-2011; email: Selected Women and Music Web Sites The International Alliance for Women in Music American Music Resource Brass Music Choral Music Digital Media Digital Notation Early Music Women Composers Fondazione Donne in Musica Improvisation Leonardo Music Journal New York Women Composers, Inc. Publishers of Music by Women Arsis Press Hildegard Publishing Company Vivace Press Rock Schumann, Clara Society for Music Theory Songs by American and British Women Beth Anderson (M.F.A./M.A.) is a critically acclaimed composer of new romantic music, text-sound works, and musical theater. Born in Kentucky, she studied primarily in California with John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley and Larry Austin at Mills College and U.C. Davis. She resides in New York City where she serves on the faculty of Greenwich House Music School.
The list is preliminary and will be updated at regular intervals. For a lengthier list, including general music and non-music sites, you may contact me at
The best place to begin is the IAWM's own site. It is user friendly, provides links to many other sites and plans to expand its already large store of information. Since Sally Reid, in the accompanying article, gives an outline of the contents of the site, I will not repeat that information. Some of the women and music sites listed below can also be accessed through the IAWM site.
This is a music bibliography and a gopher site that was established in 1993 and has recently been updated. The collection is indexed by topic-including women in music, and by subject-mostly composers, some of whom are women. The entire collection contains 850+ files and more than 600 selected URLs. The "Selected Annotated Netography" provides further external links and offers research and Internet assistance. Use of the collection is efficient, since it is text-only.
Monique Buzzarté has compiled an excellent searchable database of brass compositions by women composers.
Monica J. Hubbard is a fount of information regarding choirs. On her web site you will find links to ChoralNet (an international music resource for choral conductors) and a small discography of women's choral music as well as links to other web sites of interest to choral musicians. She also maintains a list of choral music publishers, email addresses, which she sends monthly to Choralist subscribers. (Information on how to subscribe to Choralist is found on the ChoralNet link.) The address for ChoralNet is:
Hubbard suggests that you may be interested in the ACDA Women's Chorus Repertoire Exchange, coordinated by Ricardo Soto. To receive an application for the exchange, send an email to Dr. Soto
Studio XX in Montreal, Quebec, is a Women's Digital Media Intervention Group committed to facilitating access to technology for women by providing resources and workshops, and by producing events, works, and conferences or panel discussions. The group also links members of diverse communities (linguistic and cultural) through technology. Reach them by sending mail to Kathy Kennedy at
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner is a very active writer, researcher and creator of women's discographies. Her web page has links to many music organizations and sound/video files of some of her compositions, and it incudes information about digital notation and online transmission of notation information on the WWW.
This page, established by Sarah L. Whitworth, begins with a chronological list of women composers born before 1765, and gives links to an annotated, illustrated CD discography. A new offering on this site, Romantix, includes a chronology of women composers born 1760-1899 with links to a discography and MIDI soundfiles. Additional features include a list of music publishers (with a special section on Editions Ars Femina and the Ars Femina Ensemble) and an extensive annotated bibliography. The illustrations are by early women artists.
This new site (English version page) provides information about the annual symposiums in Fiuggi, Italy.
This site was created by Katt Hernandez for the Coalition of Women Improvisers and Composers. The organization's aim is to get more young women involved in playing and composing new music, jazz, electronic music, free improvisation, rock, etc.
The Leonardo Music Journal, 1996, vol. 6, has papers that are part of Leonardo's "Women, Art & Technology" project. The project is an ongoing one that aims to encourage women artists to document their work in Leonardo.
Each of the sites listed below offers a complete catalog of its publications and order information. For other publishers of women's music, see the IAWM site.
Established in 1974 by Clara Lyle Boone (see the IAWM Journal, June 1997), Arsis Press specializes in music by contemporary women composers.
Founded by Sylvia Glickman, Hildegard is a publishing house devoted to publishing modern editions of music by women from the 9th through the 20th centuries in all genres.
Catalogs feature historical and 20th-century works for solo piano, harpsichord, and organ; works for trumpet and organ; chamber music; youth musicals and choral music; and compact disks by women composers. Vivace also publishes Women of Note Quarterly and the site provides an index of the contents.
A. M. Savage has created a resource web page on women and rock'n'roll ("a resource page for academics, practitioners and enthusiasts who feel an investment in women's music") called "Gyrating, Vibrating & Rocking all Night Long!: Women's Voices in Music." For more rock information, try
Rockrgrl
David Kenneth Smith initiated this site. It includes a short biography, start-up bibliographies, a work list, and links to other composers. To become a member of the Clara Schumann Society, see the membership page for details. If you do not have access to a World Wide Web browser and would like a table of contents to order email copies of some of the files, send your email request, or any comments or suggestions you might have, to
The SMT's Committee on the Status of Women (CSW) home page contains information about the committee and its ongoing projects, including a bibliography of resources in music and women's studies, SMT's "Guidelines for Non-Sexist Language," and an archive of syllabi from women and music courses. If you have any questions regarding the CSW home page, or need technical assistance in accessing it, contact David Loberg Code (email:
Christopher Reynolds has created a feature on his home page entitled "Bibliographic List of Published Songs Composed by American and British Women, ca. 1890-1930." The information includes title, composer, poet, publisher, date, city of publication, and accompaniments for 5,000 songs by women. To consult this bibliography, click on "Music," again on "Music Department Faculty" and then on Reynold's name. He welcomes input from anyone who would like to help expand this list: