New (Free) Database Catalogs Works by Women and Gender-Marginalized Composers

The Boulanger Initiative, with the support of Sphinx, launched its newest project this past March: the largest open-access database of works by women and gender-marginalized composers. Users can freely access over 8,000 works by more than 1,200 non-living composers in the database, opening the door to greater representation of historically underrepresented composers in classical music. The database provides filters to search by name(s), country/state of origin, and date ranges, as well as composition types, instruments, voice types, and languages. Developers hope this tool will be a boon not only for performing musicians and conductors but for anyone who wishes to diversify classical music programming. Historical information, scores, public domain images, and recordings are all available as well. The database will continue to grow and evolve; you can read their database guide to stay up on all current and upcoming features.