This study is a practical tool for all conductors of women’s voices, in the form of an annotated and indexed bibliography of repertoire. This resource will specifically present literature by women composers, with texts by women authors, written intentionally for women’s choral ensembles. I invite the reader to become an informed consumer of music by and for women. We owe it to our women performers to find works that meet the collective musical, social, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional needs of the ensemble members. Making music is a personal and emotional experience, thus, our performers deserve to sing music that represents, in part, what they believe in, and embodies who they are. This document contains annotated entries for more than 150 musical compositions of choral music for women’s voices. Each annotation is intended to inform and educate readers as to the specific characteristics of a given piece. Annotation entries include: title of work, composer name and dates, author name and dates, date of the composition, voicing, accompaniment, duration, subject matter, and publisher’s information, as well as detailed commentary related to the textual and musical aspects of the piece. All compositions are also given ratings for level of difficulty in each of six categories: Range and Tessitura, Vocal line and Melody, Harmony, Rhythm and Meter, Text setting and Language, and Expression. By the very nature of this topic, a fully comprehensive list of all available choral repertoire written by women for women will never truly exist. It will always be a work in progress. However, it is my hope that the information contained within this study will assist conductors of women’s choral ensembles in the continuing search for material that best suits the voices and interests of their singers. Women’s ensemble conductors must be familiar with the literature in the ‘by women, for women’ category, so that each individual may make an informed choice regarding repertoire for his or her own ensemble. The literal and figurative voices of women deserve to be heard. As conductors of women’s choral ensembles, it is our responsibility to let those voices sing. / School of Music

This thesis catalogues performances of orchestral music written by Canadian composers, performed between 1980 and 2005 by six Canadian professional symphony orchestras (Victoria, Calgary, Winnipeg, London, Toronto and Montreal). This catalogue, referred to as the Main Repertoire Table (MRT), lists 1574 performances. Using the results of the MRT, I identify 63 composers who have contributed five or more works to the repertoire, and 44 composers who have had at least ten performances. I also identify 47 works that have been performed five times or more. These results form a standard repertoire of Canadian orchestral music. The second part of my thesis analyses these results. Trends in programming are also discussed, including the role played by various parties, especially conductors, in the establishment of the repertoire.

Women composers have not traditionally been at the forefront of genre development. Western classical musical genres and formal structures tend to operate by conventions codified by male composers of European and North American descent, and, accordingly, reflect patriarchal aesthetics and viewpoints. The nascent genre of vocal theatre, however, has been primarily defined by the works of women composer/performers. Artists Meredith Monk, Diamanda Galas, and Pauline Oliveros have created new modes of theatre for the voice; in their personal explorations of extended vocal technique, the female voice is used as a tool for discovering, activating, remembering, and uncovering a consciousness that is primordial, pre/anti-logical, and oracular. My thesis proposes that the vocal theatre of these women functions as musical ecriture feminine, a term first introduced by French feminist theorist Helene Cixous. As a theoretical framework, ecriture feminine provides a particularly useful tool for interpreting these works, which, in the importance they place on openness, transcending language, embodied performances, and personal visions of womanhood, reveal aesthetic concerns that in many ways have more in common with the literary genre of ecriture feminine than those of canonical Western art music. I argue that these works are important not only as musical ecriture feminine, but as examples of an alternative, "feminine" compositional practice that prioritizes collaboration, improvisation, and intuitive modes of creativity. In doing so, they destabilize the traditional "maleness" of genre creation.

The purpose of this study was two-fold. The biographical study was undertaken to provide an English-language source which would incorporate materials not easily available to the English speaking reader and scholar and include interpolated information concerning historical and cultural events which affected Faure's life. The historical style analysis was undertaken to document ways in which the musical style of the nine chamber works seemed to evidence influences of cultural, educational, and historical forces which acted upon Faure's life and work. The biographical study pointed to certain specific forces which seemed to affect the style of the nine works: the attitude of nineteenth-century musicians towards the sonata as an influence on Faure's decision to use the sonata plan for the nine works and sonata-form for the preponderance of single movements; and the education Faure received at the Niedermeyer School--incorporating a study of Renaissance music and a unique method of plainchant accompaniment, and leading to Faure's long employment as a church musician--which affected his compositional choices, as seen in his melodic and harmonic syntax, which feeely mingles tonal and modal systems. Three style characteristics arising from this amalgam of systems were documented: major mode conclusions of final movements, which suggested Faure's hierarchical use of the major mode as his fundamental and conclusive mode; harmonic assertion of tonality--represented by cadential affirmation of tonality at first period closes and at the point of recapitulation entrances--which showed Faure's use of classical harmonic practice; melodic assertion of tonality, which suggested that Faure's melodic structures may independently affirm a tonality, as melodic formulas or patterns define a plainchant mode. Three rhythmic style characteristics not evidencing influences from a specific source have been included to complete the study.

The turn from the nineteenth century into the twentieth saw an increase in the number of composing European women attaining prominence in the music world. This period of history is also now recognised as one of the key phases of the first wave of feminism. Feminists and musical women moved in a similar stratum of society. Although women of this era have increasingly been the subject of scholarly research, music historians have rarely investigated the links between the turn of the century??s wave of composing women and feminists. This dissertation uses the feminist and musical press as a means to investigate composing women??s engagement with feminism. I examine feminists?? regard for women musicians and conversely composing women??s views on feminism. The thesis also reframes the privatelives of composing women through an analysis of primary sources. The composers who form the focus of this biographical investigation include Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927), Louise H??ritte-Viardot (1841-1918) and Armande de Polignac (1876-1962). Using a large body of newly analysed, unpublished correspondence and private papers, this research offers fresh insights into the biographies of composing women as well as their own self-portrayal, revealing the complex nature of Ethel Smyth??s sexuality and reassessing the fatalistic portrait of Lili Boulanger which has been drawn in some previous studies. These biographical insights background the contentions of the thesis that composing women and feminists shared common ground. Through investigating the presence of musicians in the feminist press and of feminism in the musical press, the thesis reveals an ambivalent relationship between feminists and musicians. The disappointed expectations of feminists are contrasted with the reasons composing women had for retaining a distance from feminism. The exploration of composing women??s political and personal context enables an understanding not only of their contribution to music history, but also of their place within the greater history of women??s development.

The turn from the nineteenth century into the twentieth saw an increase in the number of composing European women attaining prominence in the music world. This period of history is also now recognised as one of the key phases of the first wave of feminism. Feminists and musical women moved in a similar stratum of society. Although women of this era have increasingly been the subject of scholarly research, music historians have rarely investigated the links between the turn of the century??s wave of composing women and feminists. This dissertation uses the feminist and musical press as a means to investigate composing women??s engagement with feminism. I examine feminists?? regard for women musicians and conversely composing women??s views on feminism. The thesis also reframes the privatelives of composing women through an analysis of primary sources. The composers who form the focus of this biographical investigation include Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927), Louise H??ritte-Viardot (1841-1918) and Armande de Polignac (1876-1962). Using a large body of newly analysed, unpublished correspondence and private papers, this research offers fresh insights into the biographies of composing women as well as their own self-portrayal, revealing the complex nature of Ethel Smyth??s sexuality and reassessing the fatalistic portrait of Lili Boulanger which has been drawn in some previous studies. These biographical insights background the contentions of the thesis that composing women and feminists shared common ground. Through investigating the presence of musicians in the feminist press and of feminism in the musical press, the thesis reveals an ambivalent relationship between feminists and musicians. The disappointed expectations of feminists are contrasted with the reasons composing women had for retaining a distance from feminism. The exploration of composing women??s political and personal context enables an understanding not only of their contribution to music history, but also of their place within the greater history of women??s development.

The turn from the nineteenth century into the twentieth saw an increase in the number of composing European women attaining prominence in the music world. This period of history is also now recognised as one of the key phases of the first wave of feminism. Feminists and musical women moved in a similar stratum of society. Although women of this era have increasingly been the subject of scholarly research, music historians have rarely investigated the links between the turn of the century??s wave of composing women and feminists. This dissertation uses the feminist and musical press as a means to investigate composing women??s engagement with feminism. I examine feminists?? regard for women musicians and conversely composing women??s views on feminism. The thesis also reframes the privatelives of composing women through an analysis of primary sources. The composers who form the focus of this biographical investigation include Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927), Louise H??ritte-Viardot (1841-1918) and Armande de Polignac (1876-1962). Using a large body of newly analysed, unpublished correspondence and private papers, this research offers fresh insights into the biographies of composing women as well as their own self-portrayal, revealing the complex nature of Ethel Smyth??s sexuality and reassessing the fatalistic portrait of Lili Boulanger which has been drawn in some previous studies. These biographical insights background the contentions of the thesis that composing women and feminists shared common ground. Through investigating the presence of musicians in the feminist press and of feminism in the musical press, the thesis reveals an ambivalent relationship between feminists and musicians. The disappointed expectations of feminists are contrasted with the reasons composing women had for retaining a distance from feminism. The exploration of composing women??s political and personal context enables an understanding not only of their contribution to music history, but also of their place within the greater history of women??s development.

The turn from the nineteenth century into the twentieth saw an increase in the number of composing European women attaining prominence in the music world. This period of history is also now recognised as one of the key phases of the first wave of feminism. Feminists and musical women moved in a similar stratum of society. Although women of this era have increasingly been the subject of scholarly research, music historians have rarely investigated the links between the turn of the century??s wave of composing women and feminists. This dissertation uses the feminist and musical press as a means to investigate composing women??s engagement with feminism. I examine feminists?? regard for women musicians and conversely composing women??s views on feminism. The thesis also reframes the privatelives of composing women through an analysis of primary sources. The composers who form the focus of this biographical investigation include Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927), Louise H??ritte-Viardot (1841-1918) and Armande de Polignac (1876-1962). Using a large body of newly analysed, unpublished correspondence and private papers, this research offers fresh insights into the biographies of composing women as well as their own self-portrayal, revealing the complex nature of Ethel Smyth??s sexuality and reassessing the fatalistic portrait of Lili Boulanger which has been drawn in some previous studies. These biographical insights background the contentions of the thesis that composing women and feminists shared common ground. Through investigating the presence of musicians in the feminist press and of feminism in the musical press, the thesis reveals an ambivalent relationship between feminists and musicians. The disappointed expectations of feminists are contrasted with the reasons composing women had for retaining a distance from feminism. The exploration of composing women??s political and personal context enables an understanding not only of their contribution to music history, but also of their place within the greater history of women??s development.

Thesis (M.A.) (Hons.) -- University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1998. / Submitted for the degree of Masters (Honours), 1998, University of Western Sydney, Nepean.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, The Australian Centre, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, leaves [283]-354).