About CoWoCo
From concerts in renowned concert halls to study concerts at art universities, works by female composers are still only found in relatively small numbers in their programs and - as is also the case with their male colleagues - usually only by a few well-known names.
The motivation for this project arose from the desire to make the works of female composers better known and thus enable the concert repertoire and canon to become more diverse and egalitarian. Such a change begins with the accessibility of sheet music and extends to its use in lessons and programming in concerts.
As a survey conducted by the mdw's student body in 2021 showed, students are now familiar with several female composers, and some of their works are available as sheet music in the mdw University Library and collections on the Internet. To incorporate this into their teaching, they need time for research, which is often unavailable.
This is exactly where the compendium comes in. It aims to make finding and getting to know this important music repertoire easier. On the search page, it is possible to find specific works for certain instrumentations, voice parts, difficulty levels, etc., by filtering using comprehensive search parameters. By linking to recordings and sheet music, the internet database also offers the opportunity to explore and get to know works, to use them in lessons, and to perform them.
CoWoCo - Vocal (first project phase) initially focuses on vocal literature by 19th-century female composers available at the mdw. We are endeavoring to expand and constantly update the database, as well as to gradually expand the repertoire for various other instruments and instrumentations.
Project team
- Johannes Geppert, Institut für Gesang und Stimmforschung in der Musikpädagogik
- Birgit Huebener, Stabstelle Gleichstellung, Gender Studies & Diversität
- Stefan Szepe, IT
- Stefan Trumpf, IT