Women composers

This section contains links to free and subscription resources with a wide range of tools for finding writings and information about women composers, including biographies, bibliographies, and primary source materials.

To find literature about women composers, musicians, or feminist music practices, search the Music Library's full-text and bibliographic databases using relevant keywords, the names of composers and musicians, or the titles of works. These databases include subscription and free web resources.

You may also want to search for historical or contextual information in gender studies databases. For a comprehensive list of resources, consult the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and the Women's Studies guides.

• Archiv Frau und  Musik
  • Large international archive: 26,000 items by more than 1,900 women composers (9th to 21st century)
  • Contains primary and secondary literature
  • Provides access to recordings of published works, radio programs, and videos
  • Special collections include a collection of first editions (particularly 19th century) and autograph letters by Clara Schumann
• American Women: Resources from the Performing Arts Collections
  • Guide to the collections and resources in the Music Division of the Library of Congress that document the lives and work of significant women in music, theatre, and dance
  • Includes links to locating music scores, music literature, special collections (including digital collections), and online resources
• The Kapralova Society
  • Publishes research on composer Vitezslava Kapralova and other women musicians in its open access journal and on its website
  • Provides links to resources including bibliographies, databases, and repertoire lists of works by women composers 
  • Includes a list of women composers of new and experimental music, stage and screen, jazz and fusion music
• Sophie Drinker Institut
  • Literature on musicological research on gender and the history of German-language conservatories in the 19th century; includes books, sheet music, and recordings
  • Provides extensive lexicon of instrumentalists (approx. 750 articles)
• Women, Work, and Song in Nineteenth-Century France
  • Selected representation of women song composers
  • Digital exhibition of sheet music about or by women; includes scholarly essays and extensive bibliography
  • Pieces drawn from the 19th-Century French Sheet Music Collection at the Marvin Duchow Music Library

• McGill users only
• Open access resource
• Free resource
• In-library use
• Catalogue record