Where Are All the Women Composers?

“There are no women composers, never have been, and possibly never will be.” So declared British conductor Thomas Beecham. His swaggering remark published in the Vogue First Reader in 1944, is plainly untrue, yet it reflects a prejudice that has long marginalized female composers. Today, 86.2% of music composed across genres is credited to men.

This stark imbalance is part of what drives Gabriella Di Laccio, a classically-trained Brazilian soprano turned activist behind the U.K.-based Donne Foundation, to do what she does: amplify women’s voices in the music industry. 

As is often the case with great ideas, Di Laccio’s inspiration for Donne happened by accident. While browsing at London’s Southbank second-hand book market, back in 2016, she came across a copy of the “International Encyclopedia of Women Composers.” She bought the book and spent months becoming acquainted with some 6,000 remarkable female musicians across 44 centuries, including Iti, the Egyptian songstress, who lived from 2563–2424 BCE; Hildegard von Bingen, the prolific 12th-century Benedictine mystic and hymn writer; and Barbara Strozzi, the defiant Baroque Venetian composer-courtesan whose music has been compared to that of Aretha Franklin. Di Laccio, who studied at the Royal College of Music, recalls being electrified by the discovery. “I thought to myself, did I miss the class where they discussed these female composers? I felt so ignorant.” 

She isn’t the only one. When it comes to our knowledge of women composers, says Di Lacco, lack of awareness is at the core of the issue. Today, the Donne Foundation’s database of some 18,000 female composers serves as a vital resource for the film and music industry as well as a living rebuttal to Beecham’s infamous (and truly ignorant) claim.

In a TED talk this past April, Di Laccio warned that the rise of artificial intelligence has made the case for reviving women’s work even more urgent. “These systems can only learn from the data available to them, and right now that data is missing half of humanity’s creativity,” she says.

Di Laccio spoke to The Persistent about the long shadow of exclusion and the work it will take to shift the system.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What inspired you to bring the stories and music of women composers to a wider audience?

Growing up, my mother used to tell me about successful men like Albert Einstein, Beethoven, or Walt Disney. As amazing as their stories were, they didn’t really serve as role models for me. Later, I wondered whether she knew about pioneering women and why she never told me about them. My first motivation to do something came from realizing that, as a child, I would have loved to hear [women’s] stories and their music.

After finding that encyclopedia of female composers, I spent a year learning about them and talking to colleagues and conductors and it was incredible — nobody seemed to know about these women, despite the fact that academics have been studying women in music for decades. There are books and theses on the topic, but somehow they haven’t reached a wide audience. My husband encouraged me to do something about it, so I put up a tiny website, which I designed myself. I just wanted to honor these women.

When did your personal research become something bigger?

In 2018, I surveyed the repertoire of the top 15 orchestras in the world. All these big stages, big budgets and I kept thinking, Why are they not featuring female composers? The disparity was stark: Female composers represented just 2.3% of the music performed. I made a small infographic and published it on International Women’s Day that year. I remember pressing “publish” and feeling this huge relief — OK, I did something; now, let’s see.

Then a journalist from The Guardian picked it up and interviewed me. Suddenly, women composers from all over the world started writing to me. That’s when everything shifted. I realized this wasn’t just about my curiosity anymore. I wanted to create a space where these women, who were still, in a sense, invisible, could be seen. 

What do the numbers tell us now?

Our foundation tracks 100 orchestras worldwide every two years. And the last time we did the survey in 2024, the numbers had gotten worse. In classical music, 92.5% of what is performed is written by men, down [from 95% in Donne Foundation’s 2021 survey]. We have new research coming in September 2026, so I’m curious and a bit nervous to see where we are now.

Why do you think it’s been so difficult to change things?

It would be easy to say that the gatekeepers are bad people. But it’s not that simple. Really, they are just like I was 10 years ago. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and the ones who decide what gets played, programmed, and funded also don’t know the full catalogue. And they are in positions where it’s hard to challenge the status quo. It’s about the system — and about how limited our exposure still is.

How does AI complicate matters?

According to the latest data published by [the streaming site] Deezer, 75,000 fully AI-generated songs are uploaded to music platforms every day. These systems are learning from the music that is available and that music is 90% male-composed. I have too much respect for artists to support the idea of pressing a button to generate a song in 30 seconds — that's a different discussion. But we are now regenerating AI music based on a catalogue that largely lacks female voices. I don’t think this is right. 

What would real change look like?

My dream is to have partnerships with recording studios on every continent, so we can identify talent, record this music, and enrich the catalogue.

I’m a big believer in “amazing” people to create change rather than telling them, “You have to listen to women composers.” It’s about creating experiences where they can discover it and feel something. When they feel it, change happens.

You’re an artist, a singer. What has it been like to lead an organization?

I didn’t plan to be a founder or a CEO. I just started doing things, sometimes quite unconventional things, like breaking a Guinness World Record [for the longest musical stream of women and non-binary composers] because I wanted to bring this mission beyond the classical music community. It’s been a journey of discovery.

As artists, we don’t usually like asking for financial support. But being at the TED conference gave me the courage to ask for help. The reality is that the foundation currently has very little funding, and it needs that support to keep moving forward. 

Doing this work has changed me as an artist as well. I’ve always wanted to build a bridge to classical music, which some people perceive as elite. I don’t believe that. I know what music can do, and I hope to inspire people to be more curious.

This must demand a lot of you. Why do you keep going?

I joke to my friends that the foundation runs largely on passion and anger. 

Everything that has happened in my life since I put that website online proves that doing nothing is never the answer. It doesn’t matter how small you feel at the time. You have to do something.

There are so many people like me, running incredible projects, foundations, and charities largely on their own. I’ve seen too many people burn out simply because they were trying to do everything themselves. But I’m a bit stubborn, and I refuse to become another statistic. I have days when I think, I can’t do this anymore, but staying down is not an option. 

For Donne Foundation’s list of women-created compositions on Spotify, click here.