GIRLS COMPOSING? ARE SO RARE?

[Fabio]

Maybe I can't really recognize in the intricate play of avatars and nicknames every girl, but it seems that female composers are a very rare animal in the community. :(

I'm not machist at all, and I'm continously wondering, after hearing the nice music that some girl friend of mine played and wrote, why composing seems still a nearly male activity (while for instance female performers and soloist are a lot and playing at excellent level, frequently better than men...).

Can you show me the opposite...? :rolleyes:

[squoze]

I have wondered about this myself. I don't know any female composers--I'm sure there are some good ones I don't know about.
There's some female composers in jazz, many female songsmiths in pop music, blues was mainly male-dominated, although there were many great female singers and some songwriters.
Is there a great female composer? You have Wendy Carlos, but, well
I didn't really grow up in the music "system" so I don't know if there is a bias against women in academia or what.
And why would females not be as drawn to composing as males?

[SeanHannifin]

It is a strange trend, but it's certainly not because a lack of skill. There are still some great female composers. If you go to the library and look up a few books and cd's, you'll find a good amount. They don't tend to be too famous, however. Mozart's sister composed a few pieces, but whatever happened to her? DPDAN posted some music by Clara Schumann . . .

And then on the forum we've got Danielle Nicole Davis, who is awesome! I wonder where she is?

I'll try to get my sisters composing :D

[Stephanie Pray]

I'm a girl :p

[Fabio]

I'm a girl :p

I don't know why, but I'm feeling that you are joking.... :p

[KevinKauai]

The ONE female composer who immediately came to mind is Rachel Portman, who is also the first female composer to win an Oscar. According to the bio information on imdb.com she:

1] composed the music to a successful student film ("Privileged") which also starred fellow Oxford student Hugh Grant.

2] chooses not to conduct her music, and

3] composed an opera, "The Little Prince" which was premiered by the Houston Grand Opera in May 2003.

Oddly enough, unlike most women writers, she doesn't style herself with a three-part name!

Her screen (TV and film) music credits include some 70 credits (see her IMDB.com page (http://imdb.com/name/nm0006235/)), including: "Ethan Frome", "Benny & Joon", "The Joy Luick Club", "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar", "Emma", "Marvin's Room", "The Cider House Rules", "Chocolat", "Nicholas Nickleby", "The Human Stain", "Mona Lisa Smile" and "The Manchurian Candidate (2004)". (I have seen all but 2 of these and was really quite impressed with the score -- by a man or a woman!)

;) KevinKauai

[josejherring]

My wife started composing before I did. She's actually a really good composer. But then she never composes anything???

I'd like to hear from some female composers if they feel intimidated in a male dominated field? I'd like to find out what's going on because I'd like to fix it.

I know my agent once made a crack about a female composer. I was actually quite shocked as I never ever considered gender to be an issue when it came to composers. Then I looked around and I found that there where only a few composers in Hollywood that where women. Do female Hollywood composers feel like they're not taken seriously by agents and film makers? Let me know.

Cheers,


Jose

[Stephanie Pray]

I'm not joking - I really am a girl. :)

Rachel Portman is the only female score composer that I can think of too. Now, I'm going to have to go through all of my CD's and DVD's. Oh no!!

Stephanie :)
aka moviemaestro

[SeanHannifin]

I'm not joking - I really am a girl. :)

Rachel Portman is the only female score composer that I can think of too. Now, I'm going to have to go through all of my CD's and DVD's. Oh no!!

Stephanie :)
aka moviemaestro
:D I certainly didn't know that! It's like an epiphany . . . :D

[Stephanie Pray]

On a serious note, I have thought about the intimidation factor. At this point, I'm not intimidated, but who knows - that may change. Maybe there are so few because of cultural factors or upbringing. Not sure. I'll go ponder. Good topic though :)

[Stephanie Pray]

So everyone thought that I was a boy... :eek:

[SeanHannifin]

So everyone thought that I was a boy... :eek:
To be honest, I just assume that most people I correspond with online are males, unless I know otherwise (which now I do) . . . :o Now I have to reconsider everybody . . . :D

[Jerry W.]

I'm not joking - I really am a girl. :)

Rachel Portman is the only female score composer that I can think of too. Now, I'm going to have to go through all of my CD's and DVD's. Oh no!!

Stephanie :)
aka moviemaestro

Shirley Walker is another one - her orchestration prowess has HUGELY influenced a lot of composers of film today - whether they realize it or not.
That cool "Danny Elfmann sound" owes a great deal to her!!
Check this out!
http://walker.filmmusic.com/credits.html

There are more women out there than we realize - but not just the headliners.

It's sad though

Jerry

[Tmon]

Shirley Walker is a Hollywood film and television composer. A very good one.

go here:
http://walker.filmmusic.com/

-T

[Tmon]

Looks like someone else beat me to it!

-T

[SeanHannifin]

Bunch of women in classical music history . . . I'm not sure why they are forgotten so easily :confused:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/musicclassical/

There a lot of famous women composers in pop/country music . . .

[Jerry W.]

Looks like someone else beat me to it!

-T

Sorry, Tmon, too slow! :) ha ha JK

Jerry

[Styxx]

I wish I was a girl! Just kidding. I'm obviously taking advantage of the post, :D :D

[John Hawksley]

So everyone thought that I was a boy... :eek:

Hehe, I'm like Sean; if it's not obvious from the name I just assume people are guys.. which is a bad assumption :-)

Anyway just to be clever and link two threads together... Delia Derbyshire wrote the Doctor Who theme when she was working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Delia Derbyshire (http://www.delia-derbyshire.org/)

Cheers,
John

[SeanHannifin]

I wish I was a girl! Just kidding. I'm obviously taking advantage of the post, :D :D
Wasn't there a boy from one of those Oz sequels that got turned into a girl? That always creeped me out . . . :D

By the way, if that is your true wish, just start eating some of your wife's cookies . . . see what happens . . . :)

[Tom Hopkins]

In film: Award winning Nan Schwartz Mishkin

Personal favorites:

Lili Boulanger (younger sister of Nadia Boulanger) - simply amazing talent, tragically cut short in her early twenties in 1918.

Germaine Tailleferre (one of Les Six) - lifetime of wonderful compositions.

Tom

[GigaLove]

...Angela Morley...she composed eg. the wonderful scoring for "Watership down". It is said, that Mr. Williams askes her from time to time for compositoral advice.

But: it seems that she was a man before.

Maybe we shouldn't care so much about the and music...haha...:)

[John Hawksley]

...Angela Morley...she composed eg. the wonderful scoring for "Watership down". It is said, that Mr. Williams askes her from time to time for compositoral advice.

But: it seems that she was a man before.

Maybe we shouldn't care so much about the and music...haha...:)


I racked my brains for this name earlier... yeah, she was Wally Stott before 1972; great composer and arranger. She did all the musical cues and pieces (and conducted to band) for The Goon Show in the 50's I believe too.

John ("shut up Eccles!") H.

[Jonny Lost]

Hey Guys,


Interesting topic. Let's not forget about Sofia Gubaidulina and Joan Tower. They both write spectacularly, heavy and complex works. Check out Offertorium by Gubaidulina and Silver Ladders and Sequoia by Tower. Simply amazing.

There is also Anne Dudley who wrote the score to The 10th Kingdom>

Oh also, don't forget that Rachel Portman also wrote the score to The Legend of Bagger Vance (one of my all-time favorite scores). :-)

Jonny

[Skysaw]

First ones that usually come to my mind are Amy Beach and Ruth Crawford Seager.

When I was at Oberlin, my class contained nine composition majors, including myself. We were all men. I think there were two or three women in other years.

Brings to mind my fond memories of one of my teachers, Richard Hoffman. He was an elderly Vienese gentleman, with a heavy accent. He had studied with Arnold Shoenberg, and had been his personal assistant. On the very first day of composition class, he looked at the nine freshmen, and said:

"There are no girls in this class? Good! Then we can tell the dirty jokes!"

Which he occasionally did over the course of that semester.

[trentpmcd]

So everyone thought that I was a boy... :eek:
I guess I never thought it about it one way or the other. As far as musical discussions, etc., I don't think it matters at all. If anyone on this forum questions the ability of female composers they haven't been paying attention.

//

There was an interesting discussion on the composer forum about this subject. It wasn't about bringing up names as much as this discussion has been but more about how people respond to female composers. I recently found the thread and read through and found it all very interesting.

Hopefully we are entering an era were women composers will be valued and their contributions (past and present) will be more fully appreciated.

[Hawkes]

Aside from Rachel Portman, a few other film composers come to mind:

Laura Karpman http://laurakarpman.com/
Cynthia Millar - All I'm familiar with by her is 'Three Wishes'
Debbie Wiseman http://www.debbiewiseman.co.uk/

It's funny (and annoying) that I had to stop signing posts with my first name (Dana) because people always assumed that I'm female (and I'm not). It's not that having people assume that I'm female really bothered me, but it got to be a problem when I had a couple of guys PM me on a classical guitar forum, asking me initially about a piece of music I had posted, then getting to stupid questions like: 'what do you look like?' & 'where do you live?'. :rolleyes:

[metrobot]

Aside from Rachel Portman, a few other film composers come to mind:

Laura Karpman http://laurakarpman.com/
Cynthia Millar - All I'm familiar with by her is 'Three Wishes'
Debbie Wiseman http://www.debbiewiseman.co.uk/

It's funny (and annoying) that I had to stop signing posts with my first name (Dana) because people always assumed that I'm female. It's not that having people assume that I'm female really bothered me, but it got to be a problem when I had a couple of guys PM me on a classical guitar forum, asking me initially about a piece of music I had posted, then getting to stupid questions like: 'what do you look like?' & 'where do you live?'. :rolleyes:

so what do you look like??
:D :D :D

[metrobot]

I don't know much of her stuff, but
Anne Dudley (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006050/) has done a lot. And she's British.

[musicpete]

How about Shirley Walker? Wendy Carlos?

[Bob De Celle]

I have to throw in one of my favorites. Maria Schneider. My mentioning her on one of the posts upset somebody and I still can't figure out why. She is a really gifted jazz writer and by that I don't mean to limit her abilities. Gil Evans and Bob Brookmyer thought highly of her so I can't be all that wrong. She also just won a Grammy.

[Garritan]

Laura Karpman is one of the most amazing woman composers I know.
She is a four-time emmy-award winning Hollywood composer (and also a Garritan libraries user http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif)

Karpman scored Steven Spielberg's TAKEN for Dreamworks and the SciFi Channel. She received an Emmy nomination for the score to Showtime’s series, ODYSSEY 5 and also did the music for the Online Video Game, EVERQUEST II.

In addition to her film and television composing, Laura has a distinguished career as a composer of concert music and received a doctorate at Juilliard.
There is much more abou Laura I could write and here is her bio. (http://laurakarpman.com/home/index.htm)Perhaps we can interview Laura on the forum sometime.

Gary Garritan

[FredProgGH]

Moviemaestro- The word maestro has a very male connotation in our society, I guess because there haven't been any female maestro's (that I know of). That's why we all assumed you were male!! It's nice to find out differently!

This is an interesting and delicate topic. If there is any area of human endeavor that women would be expected to be equal to or even surpassing guys in numbers, it's this. So where are they? Do women resist the backbiting world of professional music? Do women get pushed out by a cultural bias? Are women genetically just less interested in making music??

Women are well represented as painters and sculptors and in other areas of the arts. Orchestras have always had large compliments of female players. There do seem to be many more females playing instruments in rock bands these days- not as many as you would expect, but more than 20 years ago when a band like the Go-gos or the Bangles was a real novelty. So maybe it is sort of a cultural thing where young girls kind of get the message, "Hey! I can do that!!"

I have no answers, obviously. I do have a couple theories... it is something I wonder about from time to time.

[Stephanie Pray]

Hi Fred! I know that it's assumed that "maestro" is generally a male term but it shouldn't be.

Fortunately for me, there's hope according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company:

"A master in an art, especially a composer, conductor, or music teacher." ;)

[JonFairhurst]

No one has mentioned Lisa Gerrard. http://www.lisagerrard.com/ (Cool intro, huh?)

She's credited on Gladiator, did the score for Whale Rider and is a member of Dead Can Dance.

-JF

[Hawkes]

so what do you look like??
:D :D :D

I should've sent a pic off to those guys :D
That would've scared them off. The ugliest woman they've ever seen! Especially since I don't get around to shaving more than once a week or so.

Another composer that comes to mind is Meredith Monk. She does some pretty cool, sort of minimalist stuff... she also does some music that gets annoying pretty quickly - lots of howling and screaming. :eek:

[88chopin]

To correct what someone said... Danny Elfman's sound was imitated by Shirley Walker for the Batman animated series. She was the supervising composer of the show and based her compositions for every episode on the Danny Elfman theme music for the show (He composed the theme song for the show's opening credits). The show's theme music is based on the themes from the Batman movie. I'm no huge Elfman fan but he did mention in an interview that a lot of people like to discredit him as a composer and claim that his writing is far from original. I just thought I might mention that. Elfman always says that if anyone deserves such credit, its his bandmate-turned-orchestrator, Steve Bartek.

[Looper]

Laura Karpman is one of the most amazing woman composers I know.

Gary Garritan


I listened to some of the demos on her site, very impressive stuff, and such a wide range of styles.

I'd be very interested in reading an interview with her if you can arrange it Gary.

[danpowers]

I am teaching a compostion class at Indiana State U which is 80% female.

Today I talked about Jennifer Higdon's music. She's one of the best composers working in the concert music field today. Her "Concerto for Orchestra" has recently been recorded by the Atlanta Symphony. Highly recommended!

[Fabio]

Hi Fred! I know that it's assumed that "maestro" is generally a male term but it shouldn't be.

Fortunately for me, there's hope according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company:

"A master in an art, especially a composer, conductor, or music teacher." ;)

First of all my humble apologies for my misunderstanding, maestro!

Reading more of your, I can feel your soul.

About "maestro" you are right, it's not really only for male use.

see this topic for instance.
http://northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31652&page=3&pp=10

In Italian maestro is a male word, because in the past professional musicians were only men.

[scottnorma]

To correct what someone said... Danny Elfman's sound was imitated by Shirley Walker for the Batman animated series. She was the supervising composer of the show and based her compositions for every episode on the Danny Elfman theme music for the show (He composed the theme song for the show's opening credits). The show's theme music is based on the themes from the Batman movie. I'm no huge Elfman fan but he did mention in an interview that a lot of people like to discredit him as a composer and claim that his writing is far from original. I just thought I might mention that. Elfman always says that if anyone deserves such credit, its his bandmate-turned-orchestrator, Steve Bartek.

Shirley Walker was at that time one of Elfman's main orchestrators right behind Steve Bartek. The producers of the series specifically requested that she keep that sound in the Batman cartoon series.

As for Elfman, he IS far from original. As an example, listen to "The Simpson's" theme. It starts off verbatim sounding like "Maria" from West Side Story". After that, it's all just a rehash of "The Jetson's" theme.

He's also a one trick pony. Once you've heard that agitated rhythmic thing he does in the "Tales from the Crypt" theme, you'll hear this in pretty much every single score he has done. It gets old quick. For a time he was actually having to sing his ideas into a tape recorder because he had no notation skills. He has admitted this publicly. Supposedly he was going to try to overcome this serious limitation, but I don't know if he ever did or not.

But I'm not saying he's unique in his derivative tendencies. James Horner and Hans Zimmer are equally bad offenders in this way.

Cheers,

Scott

[Fabio]

Shirley Walker was at that time one of Elfman's main orchestrators right behind Steve Bartek. The producers of the series specifically requested that she keep that sound in the Batman cartoon series.

As for Elfman, he IS far from original. As an example, listen to "The Simpson's" theme. It starts off verbatim sounding like "Maria" from West Side Story". After that, it's all just a rehash of "The Jetson's" theme.

He's also a one trick pony. Once you've heard that agitated rhythmic thing he does in the "Tales from the Crypt" theme, you'll hear this in pretty much every single score he has done. It gets old quick. For a time he was actually having to sing his ideas into a tape recorder because he had no notation skills. He has admitted this publicly. Supposedly he was going to try to overcome this serious limitation, but I don't know if he ever did or not.

But I'm not saying he's unique in his derivative tendencies. James Horner and Hans Zimmer are equally bad offenders in this way.

Cheers,

Scott

Hey Scott, Grrrr.....don't touch the author of "Simpson's"...it's one of my fav... :mad:

More seriously, I supposed that the Simpson's theme was a very sophisticated patchwork of citations, according to the story (the toon is frequently a parody of famous movies, sitcom or TV shows...), I've never read it in the "far from original" way...interstindg supposition...

:confused:

[scottnorma]

More seriously, I supposed that the Simpson's theme was a very sophisticated patchwork of citations, according to the story (the toon is frequently a parody of famous movies, sitcom or TV shows...), I've never read it in the "far from original" way...interstindg supposition...

:confused:

Sophisticated? Stravinsky is sophisticated, not Elfman.

Listen to "The Jetsons" theme, then listen to "The Simpsons" theme. This is one of the all-time most derivative themes you're gonna find.

Cheers,

Scott

[SeanHannifin]

For a time he was actually having to sing his ideas into a tape recorder because he had no notation skills. He has admitted this publicly. Supposedly he was going to try to overcome this serious limitation, but I don't know if he ever did or not.
:D I still do that! It's also a good way to make sure you don't forget ideas.

[SeanHannifin]

Sophisticated? Stravinsky is sophisticated, not Elfman.
Those is fightin' words! :D :D :D But seriously, you could argue about stuff like this all day with ease . . . it's all in the ear of the listener, nothing to argue about.

[scottnorma]

Nevermind. I don't know what I was thinking. Elfman is a freakin' genius and I'm going to narrow my frame of reference to begin at 1987 and only include film music.

[SeanHannifin]

Nevermind. I don't know what I was thinking. Elfman is a freakin' genius and I'm going to narrow my frame of reference to begin at 1987 and only include film music.
That's the spirit! :) :D

[provette82]

The ONE female composer who immediately came to mind is Rachel Portman
///QUOTE///

Debbie Wiseman....several magnificent scores for the British film industry with several awards for excellence - not to mention some dynamite hair-raising classical efforts.

Also, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich; J. Higdon....both very prolific. And there are hundreds more writing today - and thats just in the classical genre.

You guys don't get out enough.

"P"

[Fabio]

Thanks to everybody!

It's really nice to know about a so big number of musicians, but mainly about what they were able to impress in your memory and soul, driving you to list names and opus...that's power of music :)

[StrangeCat]

dude the Greatest Composer on the Planet Yoko Kanno happens to be a women also there are other composers in japan that are Women , great Jazz Composer here in the US Maria Schriber ...ok tha'ts all I know WHAHAHA
Still Yoko Kanno!

[Stephanie Pray]

Hi Strangecat,
I had to look at your post twice because I thought that you said Yoko Ono :eek:

[scottnorma]

dude the Greatest Composer on the Planet Yoko Kanno happens to be a women also there are other composers in japan that are Women , great Jazz Composer here in the US Maria Schriber ...ok tha'ts all I know WHAHAHA
Still Yoko Kanno!

What vote was taken whereby we came to know Yoko Kanno as "the Greatest Composer on the planet"? Something tells me that someone that begins his sentence with the salutation "dude", is probably in no position to be making such sweeping hyperbolic statements.

[scottnorma]

Oh for goodness sakes, it's worse than I thought. I've been listening to her music for the last 15 minutes and have yet to run into anything that impresses. Geez, I really wonder sometimes about some people's frame of reference.

[tgfoo]

Oh for goodness sakes, it's worse than I thought. I've been listening to her music for the last 15 minutes and have yet to run into anything that impresses. Geez, I really wonder sometimes about some people's frame of reference.
Guess it's a matter of preference. I personally love Yoko Kanno's stuff, though I wouldn't call her the greatest composer, but I have to say that she isn't one of my favorites.

[NDEE]

I recently discovered Eleni Karaindrou.
She's a greek composer and she did a lot of film music for Theo Angelopoulos's films. I bought the soundtrack of The Weeping Meadow released on the ECM New Series label and just love it. Her score for that film has an extra-musical aura and a sense of timelessness that is captivating.

Worth discovering.

NDEE

[kitekrazy]

There are few women involved in the math and sciences and music contains a lot of math so I can see the rationale.

If a guy writes a great song, chances are better if he has some good lookin' lady perform it than himself.

[FredProgGH]

Hi Fred! I know that it's assumed that "maestro" is generally a male term but it shouldn't be.



I totally agree!! It should not. And I know it doesn't MEAN a male. I just said that it has a male connotation when said in our society. At least more than saying "musician" with which I think most would not assume any gender. Anyway, get famous and help change that :D

BTW there's another... er, gender crossover in the symphonic composing/arranging/conductiong world- Dee Palmer, formerly Dave, who did all the brilliant string arrangements for Jethro Tull over their career. He was also in the band as second keyboardist for a time. Everything I sort of know about strings for rock music I pretty much rip off from him- her.. :D

[nexus]

here's another: Lisa Bloom Cohen

[John Elich]

Maybe I can't really recognize in the intricate play of avatars and nicknames every girl, but it seems that female composers are a very rare animal in the community. :(

I'm not machist at all, and I'm continously wondering, after hearing the nice music that some girl friend of mine played and wrote, why composing seems still a nearly male activity (while for instance female performers and soloist are a lot and playing at excellent level, frequently better than men...).

Can you show me the opposite...? :rolleyes:

I'm a big fan of GPO, but have never posted before, since I'm just an amateur, and have nothing very expert to offer.
But when I saw the question of women composers, I just had to respond.
As is so often the case, cultural dictates certainly influenced the exposure women composers have had down thru the ages. When in college at
Marylhurst University, in a suburb of Portland, Oregon (I always have to plug that school, one of the best music departments), upon learning of the great French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, who had taught such greats as A.Copland, V. Thompson, Roy Harris(I think) and even
Phillip Glass, I thought, hmm,.... where are the women composers? Turns out there were, and are many. And they were, are, so very talented every bit as much as men, but with out the societal impediments men didn't have to deal with. Turned out to be an amazing area of musical discovery, the music of women composers.

I can't recommend enough the guys checking out their work.
Here's just one of many links to get you started.

http://www.kapralova.org/DATABASE.htm

And do a search. There is this whole other musical world out there.
We even had a violin teacher at Marylhurst who had studied under Boulanger. I was so in awe of her, that I found myself just honored to be in the same building as this instructor.

[John Elich]

errr,...And they were, are, so very talented, every bit as much as men, but still stuck with the societal impediments men didn't have to deal with.
UH, sorry.

[Fabio]

Thanks to everybody for contribution: now I will save the content!

...so many names and suggestion, we created nearly an archive... ;)