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1867: Amy Marcy Beach is born in Henniker, New Hampshire. Regarded as the first outstanding American woman composer, she later marries Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach and signs her compositions as "Mrs. H.H.A. Beach."
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1886: Rebecca Clarke is born in Harrow, England.
1887: Nadia Boulanger is born; she becomes the most influential composition teacher of the 20th century.
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1891: Cecile Chaminade's Chanson Slave is the first work by a woman to be performed by the New York Symphony Society; the following year Amy Beach's Eilende Wolken is the first by an American woman.
1893: Margaret Lang's Dramatic Overture is the first orchestral work by a woman performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
1896: The Boston Symphony Orchestra performs Amy Beach's Gaelic Symphony, the first symphony by an American woman played by an American orchestra.
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1901: Ruth Crawford [Seeger] is born in East Liverpool, Ohio.
1903: Dame Ethel Smyth's Der Wald (The Forest) is the first (and only, to date) opera composed by a woman to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera.
1906: Miriam Gideon is born in Greeley, Colorado.
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1910: Carrie Bond composes the song "A Perfect Day" which goes on to sell over eight million sheet music copies and five million records.
1913: Lili Boulanger, Nadia's younger sister, is the first woman to win the Grand Prix de Rome for her cantata Faust et Hélène.
1914: Margaret Lang's Wind is the first work by a woman composer performed by the New York Philharmonic (founded 1842).
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1920s: A few orchestras begin to hire women instrumentalists other than harpists.
1920: Germaine Tailleferre is the only female member of the newly-formed "Les Six" with French composers Auric, Durey, Honegger, Milhaud and Poulenc.
1924: Amy Beach becomes president of the newly formed Society of American Women Composers.
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1930: Ruth Crawford Seeger is the first woman to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition for a year abroad. She spends time in Paris where she meets Maurice Ravel and finishes what becomes her best known work, her String Quartet 1931.
1934: Margaret Bonds becomes the first African-American soloist to appear with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Florence Price's Piano Concerto at the Chicago world's fair.
1935: Conductor Antonia Brico founds the New York Women's Symphony; in 1938 she becomes the first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic.
1938: Nadia Boulanger becomes the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra (1939).
1938: Joan Tower born in New Rochelle, NY.
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1943: Tania León is born in Havana, Cuba (and comes to the U.S. in 1967).
1944: Amy Beach dies at the age of 77.
1947: Joan La Barbara is born in Philadelphia; she is later hailed as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time" by The New Yorker.
1947: Marion Bauer's Sun Splendor is the only composition by a woman performed by the New York Philharmonic in a quarter of a century.
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1950: Libby Larsen is born in Delaware and raised in Minneapolis; she becomes one of the most successful American women opera composers of the 1990s.
1953: Ruth Crawford Seeger dies at the age of 52; she is often regarded as one of the best and most original of American composers of the first half of the 20th century.
1953: Peggy Granville-Hicks's opera The Transposed Heads is commissioned by the Louisville Opera, the first opera commission awarded to a woman.
1955: Louise Talma's The Alcestiad is the first work by an American woman to be produced by a major European opera house (Frankfurt-am-Main).
1956: Pamela Z, the now San Francisco-based composer, performer and audio artist, is born in Buffalo, New York.
1958: Julia Wolfe is born in Philadelphia; in 1987 she becomes a founding co-director of the Bang on a Can Festival in New York City.
1958: Eve Beglarian is born in Ann Arbor, Michigan (The Village Voice later calls her "one of new music's truly free spirits")
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1962: Jennifer Higdon is born in Brooklyn; she becomes one of America's most frequently performed composers with, currently, over 200 performances a year.
1966: Orin O'Brien, a double bassist, is the first woman player awarded a full season contract with the New York Philharmonic (founded in 1842).
1967: Conductor Eve Queler founds the Opera Orchestra of New York.
1969: Barbara Kolb is the first American woman to win the Prix de Rome.
1969: Joan Tower founds and becomes the pianist for the Da Capo Chamber Players, the New York ensemble for which she also composes.
1969: Tania León is a founding member and the first musical director of the Dance Theater of Harlem; she later institutes the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series (1978) and becomes New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic (1993-1997).
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1970: The Directory of American Women Composers is published for the National Federation of Music Clubs, a first of its kind.
1973: Libby Larsen becomes co-founder with Stephen Paulus of the Minnesota Composers Forum (now the American Composers Forum).
1974: Louise Talma is the first woman composer elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (now the American Academy of Arts and Letters) followed by Miriam Gideon, Vivian Fine, Betsy Jolas, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Joan Tower.
1974: Nancy Van de Vate founds the League of Women Composers (now the International League of Women Composers).
1975: Kati Agocs is born in Windsor, Canada.
1975: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is the first woman to receive the DMA in composition from The Juilliard School.
1975: Sarah Caldwell conducts the New York Philharmonic in a Pension Fund benefit concert of music by women composers.
1975: Sarah Caldwell becomes the first woman conductor at the Metropolitan Opera (founded 1883) with 11 performances of La Traviata starring Beverly Sills; Simone Young is the only other woman conductor to date.
1977: New York City Opera presents its first opera by a woman, the American premiere of Thea Musgrave's The Voice of Ariadne, conducted by the composer; NYCO later produces Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots (1981) and two operas by Deborah Drattell (1999 and 2001).
1977: The International Congress on Women in Music is founded by Jeannie Pool.
1977: Erin Watson was born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma.
1979: Nadia Boulanger and Rebecca Clarke die.
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1980: Asha Srinivasan is born in Logan, Utah.
1982: Of the 720 hymns in the 1982 hymnal of the Episcopal Church, only nine are by women.
1983: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is the first woman composer to receive the Pulitzer Prize in music (for her Symphony No.1, premiered in 1982 by the American Composers Orchestra).
1987: Julia Wolfe becomes a founding co-director of the Bang on a Can Festival.
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1990: Joan Tower is the first woman to receive the Grawemeyer Award for music composition (for Silver Ladders commissioned by the Saint Louis Symphony and written while Tower is composer-in-residence).
1995: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is named to the first Composer's Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall.
1996: Miriam Gideon dies at the age of 89.
1996: Rachel Portman is the first woman composer to win an Academy Award (for her score to the movie Emma).
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2000: The Rebecca Clarke Society is founded to promote performance, scholarship and awareness of the music of Rebecca Clarke.
2004: Jennifer Higdon is the first woman composer to be a featured composer at the Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival.
2005: Marin Alsop is appointed music director of the Baltimore Symphony, the first woman music director of a major American orchestra.
2006: Asha Srinivasan is the recipient of the BMI Foundation Inc.'s first Women's Music Commission (to create a new chamber piece for St. Luke's Notable Women Festival).
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Christine Ammer's UNSUNG: A History of Women in American Music provided a notable amount of material for this timeline.
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Hosted, conceived, and curated by Orchestra of St. Luke's
Composer-in-Residence Joan Tower
REBECCA CLARKE
Midsummer Moon for Violin and Piano (1924)
AMY BEACH
Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet (1916)
RUTH CRAWFORD
String Quartet 1931 (1931)
ASHA SRINIVASAN
By the River near Savathi for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Cello
BMI Foundation, Inc./OSL commission, World Premiere
MIRIAM GIDEON
Voices from Elysium for Tenor, Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano (1979)
June 2 @ Chelsea Art Museum
12:00 P.M. Opening Box Lunch Panel "Unspoken"
Panelists: Judith Tick, Ellie Hisama, and Stephanie Jensen-Moulton
2:00 P.M. Concert
3:30 P.M. Composer Q&A "Uncensored"
4:00 P.M. Reception
June 3 @ Dia:Beacon
3:00 P.M. Concert
4:30 P.M. Composer Q&A "Uncensored"
To order tickets click HERE.
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TANIA LEÓN
Singin' Sepia for Soprano, Clarinet, Violin, Piano Four-Hands (1996)
KATI AGÓCS
I and Thou for two Cellos
OSL Commission, World Premiere
JENNIFER HIGDON
Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano (2003)
JOAN TOWER
String Quartet No. 1, "Night Field" (1994)
LIBBY LARSEN
Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano (2001)
June 9 @ Chelsea Art Museum
2:00 P.M. Concert
3:30 P.M. Composer Q&A "Uncensored"
4:00 P.M. Reception
June 10 @ Dia:Beacon
3:00 P.M. Concert
4:30 P.M. Composer Q&A "Uncensored"
To order tickets click HERE.
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ERIN WATSON
Lullaby for Cy Twombly
Maria and Robert A. Skirnick Fund for New Works, OSL commission, World Premiere
JOAN LA BARBARA
L'albero dalle foglie azure for Solo Oboe and Tape (1989)
JULIA WOLFE
Early That Summer for String Quartet (1993)
PAMELA Z
Four Movements with Delays (2003 OSL commission)
EVE BEGLARIAN
Cave for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Keyboard, and Tape (2001)
June 16 @ Chelsea Art Museum
2:00 P.M. Concert
3:30 P.M. Composer Q&A "Uncensored"
4:00 P.M. "Uncorked!" Festival Reception
Women Festival Reception
June 17 @ Dia:Beacon
3:00 P.M. Concert
4:30 P.M. Composer Q&A "Uncensored"
To order tickets click HERE.
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$50 UNLIMITED Festival Pass (Unlimited access to all festival events! This includes admission to all concerts, Q&A sessions, and receptions. Box lunch and St. Luke's Express tickets sold separately.)
$20 Single Ticket
$15 Museum Member
$10 Student Rush @ the door
$10 Optional Box Lunch, for "Unspoken" Panel Discussion, provided by Brownstein's
Visit the galleries with admission to the concert!
Purchase tickets online or call 212.594.6100.
Ride the St. Luke's Express! Reserve your round-trip Metro-North train ticket to Dia:Beacon through St. Luke's, at a discounted price of $15.25, and ride in our reserved train car. Purchase online or call 212.594.6100.
Play the Unhidden word puzzle and win tickets to Second Helpings 2008!
Check out our MySpace blog and read what our commissioned composers have to say.
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Brownstein's Box Lunch Menu:
Caprese on Ciabatta
Fresh Mozzarella, Tomatoes, Basil &
Herbed Olive Oil
Grilled Chicken on Ciabatta
Marinated Chicken Breast, Grated Carrots, Mint, Cilantro,
Scallion & Sesame Oil Slaw
Pomegranate Turkey on Ciabatta
Turkey Breast Marinated in Pomegranate Molasses and our
Secret Spices , Gruyere Cheese with House Made
Tomato Fig Chutney
All lunches will be served with a cup of orzo with green peas and ricotta salata and a Brownstein's Brownie
St. Luke's is grateful to the following sponsors of Notable Women:
BMI Foundation, Inc.
The Aaron Copland Fund for Music
The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
Furthermore, a Program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund
National Endowment for the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts
The New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Maria and Robert A. Skirnick Fund for New Works.
Grateful thanks to the BMI Foundation, Inc. and Ralph N. Jackson, President, for underwriting the first Women's Music Commission for Notable Women.
Thank you to Furthermore, a Program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, for underwriting "Unveiled", the Notable Women program book.
 
Special thanks to Metro-North for providing the St. Luke's Express to Dia:Beacon and to Brownstein's for providing the opening panel discussion box lunch.
In partnership with:
Special thanks to 96.3 FM WQXR, the radio partner of Orchestra of St. Luke's, for providing the radio host on the St. Luke's Express.
Special thanks to Chelsea Art Museum and Dia:Beacon for the use of their gallery space for the Second Helpings concert series.
Come for the music, stay for the art... Come for the art, stay for the music!
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