A Beginning, Not an Ending

 

The Mel Bonis Project began with the discovery that the musical history I had been taught was missing far more women composers than I had realized. While researching nineteenth-century French music in 2010, I encountered the work of musicologist Florence Launay, whose research opened the door to a remarkable world of French women composers. Her work led me to composers whose names were unfamiliar to me even after years of study as a classical pianist and singer.

 

At the center of that discovery was Mel Bonis. From Bonis, I began to discover many other remarkable compositrices whose music had largely disappeared from the standard narrative of music history. The composers below formed the foundation of my original research. They are not intended to represent an exhaustive list of nineteenth-century French women composers. Rather, they are the women who helped open the door to the history that became the inspiration for the Mel Bonis Project. Our goal is to make their music easier to discover, hear, study, teach, and perform.

 

The Foundational Compositrices

 

Julie Candeille (1767–1834)

Sophie Gail (1775–1819)

Hélène de Montgeroult (1764–1836)

Pauline Duchambge (1778–1858)

Louise de La Hye (1810–1838)

Louise Bertin (1805–1877)

Loïsa Puget (1810–1889)

Louise Farrenc (1804–1875)

Clémence de Grandval (1828–1907)

Augusta Holmès (1847–1903)

Pauline Viardot (1821–1910)

Pauline Thys (1836–1909)

Marie Jaëll (1846–1925)

Mel Bonis (1858–1937)

Cécile Chaminade (1857–1944)

Louise Héritte-Viardot (1841–1918)

Henriette Renié (1875–1956)

Armande de Polignac (1876–1962)

Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979)

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)​

 

This foundational list was adopted from Florence Launay's Les compositrices en France au XIXe siècle and from the research that led to Giovanna Confalone’s 2011 presentation, "Gender Equity in Music Education: Unveiling the Hidden Curriculum".

 

Discover Their Music

The Mel Bonis Project is working to provide resources through which musicians, teachers, students, scholars, and audiences can explore these composers and find their music. We invite you to begin to explore these valuable resources here. 

 

Why Begin Here?

There is no single reason a composer’s music disappears from ordinary musical life. Historical circumstances, access to education and professional opportunities, publishing, performance practices, scholarship, and the choices made by generations of teachers and performers can all shape what remains visible.

 

The Mel Bonis Project begins from a simple premise: A composer whose music is difficult to find is difficult to hear. We want to change that. The women on this list represent a beginning—a doorway into a much larger history that remains to be explored. Look closer.