A detailed response to many recent postings on this topic just 'vanished' from my computer (!). I hasten to send the following before it too dematerializes magically. In brief -- Education: Women composers exist in the thousands across the centuries and countries. Until the latter-middle of the 20th century, however, they were not (in the US) admitted to conservatories/university music departments as declared majors in composition (or in conducting). Edith Borroff has been eloquent about being denied declaration as a Composition major at Oberlin in the '50s; Ellen Zwilich was the first woman to be awarded Juilliard's doctorate in Composition, in 1975. Recordings: Few living composers get to see second, or subsequent, recordings of their works. (0nly recently has this begun to happen in my case.) There is luster for a performer to offer the premiere recording: it is perforce the definitive reading. Much less luster goes to subsequent issues. Also, in the case of any music that serves as the subject of study for academic research/degree papers, a recording may be part of the documentary outcome of the study. Rarely does this recently-come-to-light subject matter get a subsequent recorded version -- but it does happen. Considering that so many women composers are 20th century figures, people who are researching discographical information on them should do a 30- to -40-year retrospective search. Several discographies of music by women were published in the 1990s; they attempted to be comprehensive. (One is by Aaron Cohen.) Awareness: An exhilarating experience awaits any listmember who sincerely wants to come to know music written by women. But you'll have to look in special places, since most of it doesn't make it into the more general music history books, anthologies, recorded series of music. (Does anyone remember Time's "Great Men of Music"? Composer Faye Ellen Silverman wrote to the series editor to ask why no women in the recorded anthology -- was told there weren 't any (!!!).) An interesting place to start might be with the composers' own words, from Carol Neuls-Bates' WOMEN IN MUSIC - An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle AGes to the Preset (Northeastern University Press: Boston). We teach as we were taught; we perpetuate as 'canon' what we are told IS the 'canon'. That's why I include Grazyna Bacewicz "Pensieri Notturni" and the Divertimento, Joan Tower's "Silver Ladders" and my own Symphony #1 are among the pieces analyzed in my orchestration classes. And that's why I always recommend to pianists Louis Talma's Sonata #2, and the Etudes (among many pother pieces written by women). [Read about Bacewicz (1909-1969, Polish) and Talma (1906-1998, French born American) in the "Critical Appraisals" essays section of volume one of my book series THE MUSICAL WOMAN: An International Perspective (Greenwood Press).] A fine Internet source for info on women composers (historical and living) is the site for the International Alliance for Women in Music (mentioned by Dick Hihn): http://www.acu.edu/iawm Composer/Novelist issues: Novels (and poetry) -- and the visual arts -- have no requirements. The sense of sight belongs readily to most humans; and we take the skill of reading as granted. Music requires decoding at the hand(s) of an intercessor between maker and listener: the Performer. If *performers* don't know about music written by a certain group of composers, the listeners will never have their chance to hear, to enjoy, to assess. Judith Lang Zaimont Composer: NO adjective School of Music - University of Minnesota