Guide to finding incredible choral music to broaden your programming
- consonaresing
- Mar 8
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 9
A frequent inquiry in online choral repertoire groups is conductors seeking suggestions of works composed by women or non-binary composers. Choral repertoire included in the choral canon is widely available in our institution’s choral music libraries, music anthologies, and large music publishing or distributor websites. Alternatively, compositions by women and non-binary individuals have not be historically represented in choral organizations and sometimes excluded from history, causing conductors to hunt for scores. If you are interested in broadening the choral music you learn, sing, and/or teach to include incredible composers, this guide will provide some resources to explore and locate the repertoire you are seeking.
Welcome to the quest.
Here are different sites you can explore and strategies you can employ to find these compositions. At first, it may feel as though broadening your choral repertoire requires more work. It does. But, this resource can aid your search and the incredible music you will discover is worth it. At the end of this resource, you will find a list of composers we have discovered and performed to further your exploration. These lists will be updated as new information becomes available.
Historical Options:
An online resource dedicated to promoting the vocal works and stories of historical female composers who have been overlooked for centuries (particularly historical composers). Each composer page includes recordings to explore.
This searchable database has over 400 compositions by women composers listed.
An excellent resource for using music composed by women to explain music theory concepts.
Publisher dedicated to music from the Italian convents of the 16th and 17th centuries. Most of the music was scored for SATB voicing and the website includes insight as to how the nuns sang the bass part.
General Exploring Resources:
Phenomenal. This list features more than 5,000 women composers from pre-medieval to 21st century singer-songwriters. You can filter your search to choral music and by era. When you access the composer’s page, be sure to click the “External Reference” button as it will send you to info on the composer or the composer’s website. This list would be ultimate resource if recording examples were included for each composer.
Empowering Silenced Voices Database (compiled by Chorosynthesis Singers)
You can search by social conscious themes to find options.
This project has the potential to be that searchable database we are seeking, but it appears to still in the building process, but it almost 200 songs by women composers (you can search by a number of gender marginalized composers).
You can narrow the search by women composers by clicking the link. CPDL is free!
An extensive spreadsheet of choral compositions by women composers from across the globe.
An extensive list of composers in Canada including a playlist and repertoire collection.
A google doc with lists of major works
This resource is located on the NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and it is comprehensive with numerous chapters that host many links to explore the music, a chapter per genre which includes one for choral music as well as the historical and contemporary challenges of performing the music.
This open-access Women and Gender Marginalized Composers Repertoire Database is launching March 13, 2023. Boulanger Initiative advocates for women and all gender marginalized composers. We foster inclusivity and representation to expand and enrich the collective understanding of what music is, has been, and can be. We promote music composed by women through performance, education, research, consulting, and commissions.
Treble Choir Resources:
Repertoire Lists of Women Composers for Treble Choirs (as performed by Elektra Women’s Choir)
This list is an incredible resource of women composers, including many Canadian based composers. The resource is easily searchable.
This list has a balanced offering of repertoire, with a dedication to women presenting composers.
This ensemble has shared several obscure and underperformed early repertoire.
A comprehensive resource as there is considerable information included on each work.
Sacred Music Resources:
Published three anthology volumes of music by women composers (historical and living) to be used in a church setting. The website offers perusal scores and listening links to most of the repertoire.
The website has recordings of music composed by women for every day in Advent and Stations of the Cross. A great resource for church musicians.
A new and most excellent resource with many incredible composers.
This site has a spreadsheet with a repertoire suggestion for each Sunday in the lectionary for Year B and C (church musicians – this incredible site is for you!)
Publishers:
A publisher dedicated to the works of women composers.
Kassia Choral Series (under Bank Musics Publications)
A choral series highlighting women composers.
A fantastic resource of music by historical composers, but also historical repertoire specifically composed for soprano/alto voices.
The publisher has a wonderfully diverse set of composers to explore.
An artist-owned sheet music distribution. It is an excellent resource for exploring the works of living women-presenting composers.
This publisher has a listing of all the women identifying composers they publish.
Beautiful editions of rare and difficult-to-find music for the practical modern performer.
Passion for music by underrepresented composers from all historical eras, new music by living composers, and early music.
Commission a Living Composer:
Approach a composer to write a work or collaborate on the creation of a work for one of the ensembles you direct. To reduce the cost of commissioning, you can enter into a commission consortium with other directors/ensembles.
Create Lists of Composers:
The greatest resource in our toolbox is the lists we have made of these accomplished composers and frequently exploring their repertoire while planning our concerts. Here is a list of some of the incredible composers whose works we have programmed with a link to their repertoire lists online or their composer website. A recording link has been included for a few of the examples recorded by one of community ensembles or professional chamber choir, Voices of Concinnity, and the (*) indicates composers we have commissioned. Also included is a list of composers whose works are on our list for future programming.
Historical Works Programmed:
Vittoria Aleotti (ca.1570-1646)
Caterina Assandra (c.1590-c.1618)
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Francesca Caccini (1587-1646) - Recording: "Aure volanti"
Maddelena Casulana (1544-1590) - Recording: "Morir non può mio cuore"
Sulpitia Cesis (1577-after 1619)
Maria Rosa Coccia (1759-1833) - Recording: "Dixit"
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1677)
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847)
Imogen Holst (1907-1984) - Recording "Kyrie"
Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704)
Marianna von Martines (1744-1812)- Recording "Miserere mei, Deus"
Florence Price (1887-1953) - Recording "Resignation"
Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) - Recording "Komm, süsser Tod"
Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)
Lucrezia Vizzana (1590-1662)
Undine Smith Moore (1904-1898) - Recording: "We Shall Walk through the Valley in Peace"
Living Composers Programmed:
Melinda Bargreen
Barbara Baker
Nadia Boulanger
Kerensa Briggs - Recording: "Media Vita"
Eleanor Daley - Recording: "Love Came Down at Christmas"
Melissa Dunphy* - Recording: "Wild Embers", "Witch-Wife", "Halcyon Days"
Cheryl Engelhardt* - Recording: "Breadth of Blossoms"
Reena Esmail - Recording "We look to you"
Glenda Franklin
Katerina Gimon - Recording: "All together we are love"
Elaine Hagenberg - Recording: "Song of Miriam"
Edie Hill - Recording "Alma beata et bella"
Laura Mvula - Recording "Sing to the Moon"
Shruthi Rajasekar - Recording "Do not stand at my grave and weep"
Ghislane Reece-Trapp
Caroline Shaw - Recording of "Her Beacon Hand Beckons"
Moira Smiley - Recording "Bring me a little Silvey"
Willametta Spencer - Recording: "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners"
Dale Trumbore - Recording: "Perhaps"
Hyowon Woo
Composers on our List for Future for Programming:
Written by Sarah Kaufold, Artisitc Director of Consonare Choral Community
If you have resources you believe should be included in this list, please feel free to contact us via our website here. We will be compiling a list of choral-orchestral works soon.