Music, Voice, Message
People who identify as women
WSF is an online forum devoted to women’s voices in song, to the many songs by women, and to the many female musicians working in and with song, who have yet to be given the attention they deserve. The Women’s Song Forum provides an opportunity to expand and enhance knowledge and understanding of this rich and significant area of musical practice and scholarship, and – as the name “forum” suggests – aims to encourage discussion and debate across different interest groups. The forum aims to highlight compositions and performances of music that deserve more recognition.
At the heart of the forum is our commitment to diverse approaches and subjects and access by a wide-ranging audience. We normally publish 2-3 posts each month by members of our team and guest bloggers.
Lily Strickland’s “Mah Lindy Lou,” a setting of her own Black dialect poem, became internationally popular and was often performed and recorded by Black and white singers
Behind the gentle rhythms and pastoral lyrics British women composed to celebrate Mother’s Days a century and more ago lie several calculated strategies. This is Part 1 of 2.
Songs about life after the death of a mother in childbirth were once extremely popular. Now long forgotten, the tales they tell are worth hearing.
Can the editorial creation of a song-cycle from individual songs help raise the visibility of women composers? The songs of Pauline Viardot-Garcia offer a wonderful opportunity.
Last summer I assembled a cycle of eight songs by the 19th-century German composer Pauline Decker, understanding this curatorial action as an important form of advocacy.
From accounts of individual women or performances to historical essays, from interviews with songwriters and performers to discussions of gender, race and culture in and through song.
Tracy Chapman
As European art music began to be challenged by jazz, musically influential women devised ways to cultivate “a taste for ‘good’ music in children.”
Although banned for much of her career from major opera houses, Marian Anderson had an intriguing and lifelong devotion to Donizetti’s aria “O mio Fernando.”
The upcoming premiere by Red Vespa of Lisa Neher’s composition, Upon a Broken World, acknowledges what we have endured these past few years.
Eva Maria Doroszkowska marks the most recent anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with this reflection about the remarkable, but largely unknown, composer Stefania Turkewich.
Lisa Colton recounts the thrill of discovering the autograph manuscript of Edith Smyth’s ‘Mass in D.’
Ascensión Mazuela-Anguita finds that Lomax’s 1952-53 recordings help us to understand the political situation under Franco, life in impoverished Spain, and the moral constrictions faced by women.
John Michael Cooper interprets Florence Price’s songs, “To My Little Son” and “Brown Arms (To Mother),” as responses to the painful losses of her son and her mother.
One of our aims is to recover and honor voices that have been overlooked or forgotten.
Sara Teasdale
Wichita’s newspaper, The Negro Star, helps document the remarkable life of Mollie Fines, and shows that she regularly used new musical experiences to create new opportunities.
In this post we turn to “Dog Teeth” by Nicole Dollanganger and to “Gatekeeper” by Jessie Reyez. Content Warning: Discussion of rape and disturbing lyrics.
Although Emma Louise Ashford (1850-1930) is little known today, her music has been performed ever since it was published, in the U.S. and around the globe.
