In The Score, American composers on creating “classical” music in the 21st century.

What is the role of the ”woman composer” and why, after all these years, is she such a burning issue?

I’ve taken part in arguments on the subject in meetings, concert halls, seminars and bars. The topic is a hot one in the media, too. In some quarters we have variously been declared dead, underrepresented, underserved, less likely to take risks and more reluctant to ask for anything. As a woman and a composer, I would like to declare myself alive, represented, served, eager to take risks and downright dogged when it comes to asking for things.

Music is music: I don’t believe it has recognizable male or female characteristics.

When I was a small child and adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would inevitably answer “an elephant or an electric harmonica.” Compared to my unusual kindergarten aspirations, becoming a composer was a conventional choice. At least it was a field populated by humans, even if most of them were men.

I’ve never considered myself a “woman composer,” but I suspect that over the years being female has helped more than it’s hurt. Being a woman (and having high hair) has made me easier to recognize, easier to remember and has spared me from fitting into the generic description of a composer: “medium build, dark hair, glasses, beard.” I will admit to liking the invented honorific term “composeress.” (It sounds archaic, grand, and slightly ridiculous, just as a gender-specific title for a composer should.)

Occasionally I’ve been annoyed or inconvenienced, but in the long run I never felt like having two X chromosomes held me back — especially as I find more and more musicians, presenters, journalists, and listeners who are eager to narrow the mile-wide gender gap.

From time to time people have told me that my music doesn’t sound like it was written by a woman. I’ve even read similar comments in reviews. Music is music: I don’t believe it has recognizable male or female characteristics. In terms of culture, I identify much more with my ethnic background and my immigrant ancestors, inheriting an outsider’s view while finding my own niche in New York. Works I’ve written tend to reflect this: “Daughters of the Industrial Revolution,” for instance, is inspired by my grandparents’ immigrant experiences in early 20th Century New York and incorporates junk metal percussion (in a nod to my grandfather who sold scrap metal) and machine sounds similar to what my grandmother might have heard in the sweatshops she worked in as a child. I revel in aggressive noise, loud metal percussion and samples of machinery as much as I revel in quiet, subtle shifts in pitch. I enjoy confounding any cliched notion of what “women’s music” should sound like.

When I was 14 my piano teacher Bernard Peiffer told me “you’re not as strong as a man, so you’ll have to find your own way to play piano.” I was crushed, thinking my hero was just reducing me to the “weaker sex.” But In the end, the message I got from Bernard was to find my own way, and create my own musical world that made the best of the hand (or hands) I was dealt. His words still resonate in the music I write. “Phantom Shakedown” is a piece I wrote for myself for piano and electronics. It emphasizes the instrument’s power, but the strength comes from clusters and dense chords that fit in my pint-sized mitts, offset by the noisy sounds of static and distortion from malfunctioning machines and old tube radios.

Before my music landed firmly under the amorphous umbrella we call “new music,” my years of experience led me through classical music, free improvisation, jazz, rock and electronic pursuits. Each musical inclination has had its own pleasures and pitfalls, but within every one of these subsets I have seen conditions improve for women. Male jazz musicians had no shame in declaring a lone woman pianist “pretty good for a chick.” When I went to music stores to check out new equipment, salesmen would ignore me (there were no saleswomen in the keyboard rooms back in those days) eventually asking if I was just killing time waiting for my musician boyfriend. Punk clubs had their share of crazy caricatures of “sexist pigs” (fortunately mixed with many enlightened misfits). None of that behavior would be acceptable today. Sexism and sexual harassment have become much more clearly defined, and inappropriate behavior can get teachers, administrators, and even musicians, fired.

Things didn’t get better on their own. Some of the credit goes to all of the women and men who have taken an active stance in performing, programming and writing about music by both sexes. Older institutions can still be bogged down by their own sheer weight, though; the hefty financial investment of a new orchestral work or opera can make more conservative organizations balk, and the few new works that they do commission often conform to the old model. Can we expect these institutions to move as quickly to represent both sexes? Maybe not, but we should make our voices heard.

I recently started the arduous process of proposing a new work to orchestras and chamber orchestras that’s inspired by jammed radio signals in World War II. Do I think it may be overlooked because I’m female? No, but it could take a while to find a home because it’s a big, raucous, noisy, unconventional piece that won’t be easily performed alongside Tchaikovsky. In the meantime I develop the idea further through solo pieces and small chamber works. We can subvert (and improve) the system every time a new work by a woman is performed by one of these big institutions. And a big, noisy, raucous, unconventional piece by a woman? Icing on the cake.

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After serving as a juror on dozens of grant panels and competitions, I started to notice that female composers frequently make up about 10 percent of the initial applicant pool, but often represent 20 percent of the awardees. The figures vary, but in my experience, female applicants are often twice as likely to be awarded a grant than their male counterparts. There isn’t a single explanation for this phenomenon. The quality of the work is always the most critical factor, and every grant has its own mission and methods. But it might just indicate that there are advantages to being a female composer.

Some music programs become known for selecting one type of composer (male or modernist, for example) and over the years it feeds on itself. But one can’t always assume that women are being excluded; sometimes they are not applying in the same numbers. I’ve heard women say “I won’t waste my time applying for grants that only go to men” and often the vicious cycle continues. I always made an effort to submit my music to programs that weren’t representing many women composers, tempering optimism with a calculated risk, figuring the best way to alter the balance was to give the powers that be the opportunity to change things.

Today I see much more disparity between socioeconomic classes than between genders. Composers who don’t have the funds to access the best musicians and the best education (and the ensuing connections) are less likely to get their own projects off the ground, and can be left with far fewer opportunities. Financial troubles can hit men just as hard as women.

Some of my female colleagues have expressed the concern that it has been harder for them to advance in their careers because as girls, they were not taught to ask for things or to be aggressive. I was raised closer to the old shirt sleeve pull of Orchard Street than to traditional academia and the Ivy League. My grandparents were small business owners who had no choice but to learn how to negotiate, barter and sell, whether it was scrap metal or ladies’ suits. My parents continued the tradition by running a restaurant. Although I always put the creative aspects of composing first, I acknowledge that selling the music is also part of the job. Granted, it’s my least favorite part of the job, and it makes me break out in a cold sweat, but without it, my music may never be heard. My male colleagues have confessed that they often feel the same way. Women composers don’t have an exclusive on not wanting to deal with business or handle rejection: the boys often hate it, too.

Related More From The Score Read previous contributions to this series.

But the unanswered question persists: why do women continue to be such a consistently small minority in composition? Are all of the young female composers being mowed down at the gates of orchestras, opera companies, and conservatories? I haven’t seen any smoking guns, but it would explain the wild disparity between the genders. Sometimes the numbers just don’t add up and we don’t know why. I’ve never heard any complaints about the lack of female mass murderers, and I don’t understand why there are so few male harpists (who could resist a role model like Harpo Marx?). Composition can be an inefficient, time consuming practice. It can take months to compose mere minutes of music. And even after a piece is finished, it’s handed over to the musicians and they, in turn, need to dedicate hours of rehearsal to learning this new creation.

Maybe girls aren’t as likely to be raised with egos big enough to believe that it’s worth all of the trouble. Maybe grown women aren’t as interested in pursuing this archaic, laborious discipline. Could artistic practicality be gender-specific? It’s hard for me to say, since I’ve always loved the impractical process and meticulous minutiae of sculpting music, shifting notes, and all of the arcane intricacies that are part of being a composer. Most of all I never felt that I had a choice — writing music is what I love to do. Although there are fewer women role models and mentors, when I’m excited about a new commission, or struggling to meet a deadline, the creative energy and challenge of the work itself is the real motivating factor.

In 1992 I created my own mentor, a fictitious and cantankerous composer by the name of P.W. Schreck. Not surprisingly, I had a lot in common with him musically. I published three articles on his work and performed his music at the “Festival of Radical New Jewish Culture” at the Knitting Factory, my first high-profile concert in New York City. If I had it to do all over again, my imaginary mentor might be a woman, but it proved to me that there are creative ways of getting around not having the perfect role model. Getting the gig was another story — I made a cold call to John Zorn to propose the project, attempting to penetrate what appeared to be a boys’ club. Zorn invited me to participate on the spot, I was welcomed into the community and my fears and assumptions based on the numbers were happily proven wrong. I learned to never assume that existing imbalances were based on sexism, and enjoyed having men open a few doors for me, even if it was only figuratively.

In the past century, female composers have gone from being an anomaly to a small but varied, vocal, and indispensable part of the community. But women aren’t the only minorities in the world of composition: we lack diversity in class and race far more than gender. In a field where it’s so critical to come up with new ideas, no budding composer should be stopped in her (or his) tracks simply because there isn’t somebody to follow who conforms to a matching set of demographics or physical characteristics. Mentors don’t need to be mirror reflections of ourselves. If you can’t find the perfect role model, become one. Instead of feeling ostracized or overlooked, provide inspiration for the next generation.

Not all artistic innovations are the product of a perfect environment, I learned more playing in clubs and dodging beer than I ever did under more “nurturing” conditions. We’ve seen positive changes, but we can go further. There are times when we still need to deal with sexism, racism, and class issues, and we can’t ignore the struggle. If you’re feeling overlooked or underrepresented, the solution is not to get discouraged, but to get mad, get composing and get even.

(For more on this topic, see this discussion at New Music Box, or Alex Ross’s article in the New Yorker and Kristin Kuster’s recent post for The Score.)



Annie Gosfield is a composer living in New York City. Her most recent CD is “Almost Truths and Open Deceptions” (Tzadik). She was a 2012 fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and has taught at Mills College, Princeton University and California Institute of the Arts.