Women Composers Creative Conditions Before And During The Turkish Republic

This research is focused on three Istanbulite composers, Leyla Hanımefendi, Nazife Aral-Güran, and Yüksel Koptagel, who lived and produced in consecutive and overlapping periods, from the Tanzimat Era of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic of the 1980s. It explores the composers' productive and creative conditions through the socio-political environments of their times, their familial and educational backgrounds, and the social spaces in which they lived and worked. The institutionalisation of Western music and the education thereof occupy a significant place in understanding the composers' relationships with Western music, the bonds they established with polyphonic music, and the development of their musical personalities as a consequence of their education, resultant from the opportunities provided by such developments. This study conjointly examines herstory and music historiography by employing alternative materials and creating its own narrative.

   With newly recovered information about women composers as well as an updated listing of available scores and recordings, this edition brings together musical and biographical material about 25 composers from the 11th to the 20th centuries; discusses each composer in context and analyzes the conditions required for women to compose and for their works to survive.

First study of American women composers and attitudes towards women musicians in the nineteenth century.