Women's History

By any measure, 1996 was a landmark year in American Music. It was the year female solo artists out-charted their male counterpoints on the Top 20 charts for the first time in history. And, they did it by an impressive margin of 61 to 39 percent. Intrigued by the seemingly sudden surge of female recording artists, the author examined the pop charts from 1996 back to the start of the modern era, 1954, to determine the significance of the event. What he discovered astonished him: Not until 1996 had women ever out-charted men on the pop charts-the 1996 event was a historical first for American music. This revolution brought about incredible changes in the industry and in the music itself. But the building blocks for these changes were laid many years before by hundreds of women in front of the mic and behind the scenes. Go, Girl, Go! is the story of their musical revolution.

By putting black women performances at center stage, Feldstein sheds light on the meanings of black womanhood in a revolutionary time." -- Publisher's description. (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics™, a Bowker service.)

Sounds and Sweet Airs reveals the hidden stories of eight remarkable female composers, taking the reader on a journey from seventeenth-century Medici Florence to London in the Blitz. The featured composers are Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianna Martines, Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn), Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger and Elizabeth Maconchy. (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics™, a Bowker service.)

Audiences for musical theater are predominantly women, yet shows are frequently created and produced by men. Onstage, female characters are depicted as victims or sex objects and lack the complexity of their male counterparts. Offstage, women are under-represented among writers, directors, composers and choreographers. While other areas of the arts rally behind gender equality, musical theater demonstrates a disregard for women and an authentic female voice. If musical theater reflects prevailing societal attitudes, what does the modern musical tell us about the place of women in contemporary America, the UK and Australia? Are women deliberately kept out of musical theater by men jealously guarding their territory or is the absence of women a result of the modernization of the genre? Based on interviews with successful female performers, writers, directors, choreographers and executives, this book offers a unique female viewpoint on musical theater today. (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics™, a Bowker service.)

Gillian G. Gaar’s critically acclaimed, breakthrough book, the first full history of women in rock and pop ever written, became an instant classic upon its publication in 1992. Arranged chronologically and told with impassioned detail, She’s A Rebel charts a half century of women performers from the early R and B singers of the 1950s, to the girl groups, Motown acts, folksingers, and rock chicks of the 1960s, to the punk rebels and pop divas of the 1970s, to the brash all-girl bands, rappers, and riot grrls of the 1980s and 1990s. This expanded ten-year anniversary edition features over 75 photos and includes three all-new chapters on all the major artists of the last decade as well as an insider’s look at the music industry and the emerging power of women rock stars.

This collection of new interviews with twenty-five accomplished female composers substantially advances our knowledge of the work, experiences, compositional approaches, and musical intentions of a diverse group of creative individuals. With personal anecdotes and sometimes surprising intimacy and humor, these wide-ranging conversations represent the diversity of women composing music in the United States from the mid-twentieth century into the twenty-first. The composers work in a variety of genres including classical, jazz, multimedia, or collaborative forms for the stage, film, and video games. Their interviews illuminate questions about the status of women composers in America, the role of women in musical performance and education, the creative process and inspiration, the experiences and qualities that contemporary composers bring to their craft, and balancing creative and personal lives. (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics™, a Bowker service.)