Composer

Forthcoming, late 2026

On the face of it, the role of women in the classical (and wider) music industry over the past 10 years seems to have radically changed for the better. Then, Marin Alsop's presence on the podium of the BBC's iconic "Last Night" at the Proms was headline news while by 2025 the Proms season featured no fewer than 15 female conductors. Music composed and performed by women, past and present, appears to be riding the crest of a wave. The author’s own Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music (Oneworld, 2016) both reflected this trend and itself inspired and informed various initiatives including two Classic FM radio series and a documentary film on Fanny Mendelssohn.

And yet, for all the optimism of 2016, and all the developments on many fronts that have occurred, there is a sense of regression, or at least stasis, rather than progress. From campaigners crunching music industry statistics to performers seeking to expand their repertoire to composers seeking the most prestigious platforms, there is frustration and even bewilderment at the glacial pace of change. Composer: the changing face of music asks three questions of western society and the music industry: what conditions allow women to compose; to be performed; and to leave a legacy?

Whereas Sounds and Sweet Airs looked at historical figures, this new study focuses as much on the present as the past, asking what has changed in the last decade, and why. The author addresses these questions through interviews with a range of practitioners working throughout the music industry. Their insights are woven into a book that is part survey, part manifesto for change. Drawing on her work as a cultural historian, Beer argues that many of the exclusionary patterns, practices and systems which operated in the past endure into our contemporary life. She returns to some of the historical composers considered in Sounds but adds new figures including Margaret Bond and Emilie Mayer to offer both a richer account of the past and a vision for the future.