Women's History Month 2022

I remember reading that after Lili Boulanger died on March 15, 1918, Nadia Boulanger used stationery with a black border during every subsequent March to honor the memory of her sister. I wish I remember where I read it (I have scoured all the possible sources on my bookshelves), but when the month of March became a month dedicated to women's history (the process started in 1978, and Congress made it official in 1987), I always believed, in my music-centered way, that it was because of the memory of Lili by Nadia. It could just be coincidence, though.

My interest in learning about and performing music written by women began in the later 1980s (it didn't occur to me that I might try my hand at writing music myself for at least ten years). Every March, from the small university radio station where I worked, I would broadcast as much music written by women as I could find. During the rest of the year I wrote articles about women who wrote music for the Maud Powell Signature (which has since been renamed), and eventually my pianist friend John David and I would play concerts of music written by women presented every March by the Women's Studies Program at the university. We hope to play our next concert for the Women's Studies Program in March of 2023.

I had to work really hard over the decades to convince people (musicians and listeners) that it was indeed possible for a women to write music as well as a man. I had to work especially hard at it while I worked as a reviewer for the American Record Guide (where most readers thought of me as "Mr. Fine" because reviews were signed by last name only, and more than 95% of the reviewers were men).

I know, of course, that some men are better composers than some women are, and I know that some women are better composers than some men are. I also know that most composers (with rare exceptions) write music of varying quality. But contrary to a lot of the listeners and a lot of the critics I have encountered, all men are not better composers than all women.

We now know this to be true. We didn't always.