A few days ago John Suchet at the BBC tweeted about composers whose names begin with B. The names he mentioned were super obvious male composers – Beethoven, Brahms, Bach and Bizet. Naturally members of the community working for gender equality, myself included, had a rant at him and replied with the names of awesome female composers whose names also begin with B. Names we mentioned included Beach, Bacewicz, Boulanger, Bonis, Bosmans and lots more.
I decided to take this a few steps further and create a gender equal alphabet of classical composers.
This is the result, an A-Z of awesome classical composers. Every one of them has written lots of awesome music.
A is for Lera Auerbach and Albinoni
B is for Bach and Amy Beach
C is for Cecile Chaminade and Chopin
D is for Debussy and Alma Deutscher
E is for Rosalind Ellicott and Elgar
F is for Faure and Louise Farrenc
G is for Ruth Gipps and Glass
H is for Handel and Augusta Holmes
I is for Adina Izarra and Ives
J is for Jenkins and Betsy Jolas
K is for Larysa Kuzmenko and Khachaturian
L is for Liszt and Elisabeth Lutyens
M is for Marianna Martines and Mozart
N is for Nielson and Olga Neuwirth
O is for Morfydd Owen and Offenbach
P is for Puccini and Florence Price
Q is for Marie Quinalt and Quilter
R is for Rachmaninov and Priaulx Rainier
S is for Ethel Smyth and Saint Saens
T is for Tchaikovsky and Joan Tower
U is for Galina Ustvolskaya and Uematsu
V is for Vaughan Williams and Pauline Viardot
W is for Judith Weir and Wagner
X is for Xenakis and Qu Xixian
Y is for Chen Yi and Ysaye
Z is for Hans Zimmer and Gaziza Zhubanova
Playlist to follow shortly.
