by Barbara A. Petersen as published in the ILWC Journal, July 1991, pp. 8-9.
editor's note: Dr. Petersen prepared this article in January, 1990.
In 1990 BMI is celebrating its 50th anniversary, which seems an appropriate time to look over the progress of its women concert composers and point to dramatic changes over the years. In some other areas of BMI's music, there have always been many prominent women, especially in country and pop. BMI's president since 1986 is Frances W. Preston, and in many areas of the company women hold responsible positions and officerships. In theater, film, and concert music (areas all headed by women executives) there have been fewer women composers at work, but their numbers are certainly growing.
From its earliest days, BMI has represented a few female concert composers (Marion Bauer and Miriam Gideon among them) through its special relationship with the American Composers Alliance. In the 1940s, some ACA members (female and male) did not qualify for ASCAP membership and were glad to see ACA/BMI take up their cause. The relationship between BMI and ACA continues to flourish, and I should point out that ACA's immediate past president (Eleanor Cory) and its long-time general manager and now executive director (Rosalie Calabrese) are also BMI writers (of music and words, respectively).
By the time BMI began royalty distribution on live concert performances (1968), our concert composers included a few more prominent women such as Peggy Glanville-Hicks. In the two succeeding decades there has been a surge in performances of music by women, as well as a general increase in performance opportunities for all concert composers. Ever since the 1976 copyright law took effect, many more concerts, broadcasts, and telecasts have become eligible for performing rights licensing as well as royalty distribution.
Shortly after I joined the BMI staff in 1977, a special issue of the BMI magazine was published: "I Am Woman" (so titled after Helen Reddy's song) celebrated BMI's women composers and executives in all areas of music. A growing roster of concert composers included the above-mentioned women as well as Ursula Mamlok, Netty Simons, Daria Semegen, Joan Tower, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Lucia Dlugoszweski, Ann McMillan and Cindy McTee. Soon to join their ranks were such composers as Diane Thome, Susan Blaustein, Priscilla McLean, Marilyn Shrude, Ann Silsbee, Elizabeth Pizer, and Ruth Anderson (among many others). But still, before the copyright law changed, fewer than 20 women (and under 180 men) were regularly receiving live concert royalties from BMI. A decade later, at least 140 women would be receiving BMI royalties in concert music from U.S. broadcast, live concert, and/or foreign sources.
In the 1980s, dozens of women joined the ranks of BMI composers, including Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Nancy Van de Vate, and others who would bring the role of women to the forefront in American music. (I was proud to bring the estate of Ruth Crawford Seeger into the fold in 1985; prior to that, composer royalties on performances of her works had never been paid.) While our current roster is too lengthy to allow mention of all active women composers, I can point to the following accomplishments by those with BMI: the first (and so far only) Pulitzer Prize in Music given to a woman, dozens of American orchestral performances each year (for a handful of women), increasing numbers of works selected for publication, new recordings of more and more repertory, Guggenheim Fellowships, Rome Prizes, growing commissions for all types of works, and countless other honors bestowed upon women.
Looking at statistics in the annual BMI Student Composer Awards (now in its 38th year) the percentage of women entering has been between 10 and 20% in all the years I have been involved with this program. (Judging is, of course, done under pseudonyms, and the statistics are never completely accurate because of certain first names not being gender-specific.) In the late 1970s, 10-13% of the entrants were women, and frequently the winners reflected the same proportions. In the late 1980s, the entrants were most often 17-20% women, with winners again consistent (or better).
In the Student Composer Awards' first decade (1950s), only three women won BMI awards, (once each). In the 1960s, a total of eight women won BMI awards, three of them repeating this success. Through the 1970s, ten names were added to the list (none of them winning more than once) and in the 1980s, twelve more women received the prize, with 6 of them winning more than once. To date, the only woman to win three awards (the allowed maximum) is Ruth Meyer Sacks (1983-85). Dalit Warshaw and Wendy Chen have won three times if their honorable mentions are included. While these statistics do not show growth by leaps and bounds, they do indicate sure and steady progress. I hope that every composer in the League will encourage all eligible young women they know to enter this competition (and many others!).
As we head into the 1990s, let me encourage all of you-and your students, colleagues, and friends-to PARTICIPATE, COMMUNICATE, and ADVOCATE. You are in a field where competition is stiff and funding is all too scarce; but keep at it and let us hope that your efforts will prove worthwhile both individually in the present and for women composers of the future. As chair of the board of New York Women Composers, let me add my hope that all of our women's organizations-ILWC, ICWM, AWC, and NYWC-will build upon their accomplishments to date and flourish into the next century. Remember too that women are increasingly important in other organizations in the wider world of contemporary American music. To name a few leaders, let me mention Nancy Clarke at the American Music Center, Catherine French at the American Symphony Orchestra League (and currently president of the National Music Council), and D. Antoinette Handy (recently confirmed as director of the Music Program at the NEA). Happily, my list could go on, but it can wait: I have promised our editor more columns in the future.
Barbara A. Petersen is Assistant Vice President, Concert Music Administration at BMI. She has chaired New York Women Composers since 1985 and serves on boards of or acts as advisor to many new music organizations. A clarinetist and then singer as a child in Indiana, she studied at Carleton College and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology at N.Y.U. Her book on the lieder of Richard Strauss has been published in both English and German, and she continues her Strauss work when not attending concerts, speaking at conferences or writing about contemporary composers, among them Miriam Gideon. As a postscript to this article, in 1991 Dr. Peterson would like to salute Joan Tower on her 1990 Grawemeyer (the first to a composing woman) and her ongoing series of "Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman" that pay tribute to prominent colleagues in the music world.