Festival of Female Composers highlights growing momentum for women and gender diverse composers
In September 2015, when ABC Classic tracked who was composing music played on air, female composers received a minuscule share of 2.2%.
This has led the network to be more intentional about how it supports the music of female composers, particularly through a project supporting women’s music that started in 2016.
The project grew into a multi-day Festival of Women Composers that continues to form the backbone of ABC Classic’s International Women’s Day celebrations each March.
Arguably the largest radio festival of its kind in the world.
Many in the classical music world are also considering ways to improve gender equality in the industry.
We explore some of the initiatives that attempt to level the playing field, as well as the structural barriers that prevent women and gender diverse composers from achieving parity.
What the data says
Data collected from ABC Classic, major music organizations and independent data trackers help paint a picture of how female composers’ participation in classical music has increased in recent years.
In the 2024-25 financial year, music by female composers accounted for 15.7% of airtime on ABC Classic and 19% of overall tracks played.
The station is on track to achieve similar numbers this year; a far cry from 2.2% a decade ago.
Even more encouraging is that audiences are becoming increasingly familiar with the names of female composers.
“Every year during the Festival, I do a request show of women-only music, and for three hours we are inundated with listeners asking for their favorites from these queens,” says ABC Classic host Vanessa Hughes.
Hughes keeps track of the diversity of composers played on the station.
“[Over the past year]ABC Classic has released music by 1,294 women and non-binary composers.“
Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin, whose works include Eliza Aria, Butterflying and Unsent Love Letters, is the station’s most played female composer and the eighth most played composer overall in the last 12 months.
Elena Kats-Chernin is ABC Classic’s most played female composer. (Australian Music Centre: National Museum of Australia)
There is also momentum in the Australian classical music world.
“We have had a 30% increase in hires for female-identifying composers, a significant increase over the last five years,” Australian Music Center CEO Catherine Haridy said. he says.
Meanwhile, APRA AMCOS reports There is a steady increase of nearly 5% annually in the number of female and gender diverse music creators joining the organization.
Data from Australian stages and performance venues is equally encouraging.
Perth-based musician Hannah Lee Tungate tracks the range of music programmed by Australian state orchestras through the Tenth Muse Initiative.
“Overall, women accounted for 14.5% of total musical works for 2025; This rate increased by 2.6% compared to 11.9% in the previous year.“
“[In comparison]In 2024, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach accounted for 14.2% of all programs nationwide. By 2025, this rate has fallen to 13.1%,” says Lee Tungate.
“This is the first time I have these statistics where Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are fewer than the number of women programmed this year.”
Despite these positive trends, there are still challenges facing female composers in Australia’s classical music world.
What’s happening in recording studios
Before you can play music by female composers on radio or streaming platforms, the music must be recorded.
In the past, not all music was equally loved or prioritized by musicians.
Virginia Read has recorded hundreds of albums that are played every day on ABC Classic. (ABC)
“When I first started, there was a sense that doing work in Australia was an icon,” says ABC Classic senior sound engineer Virginia Read.
Recently retired, Read is currently the only woman to receive the ARIA Best Audio Engineer Award.
Underrepresented groups Read implies include living composers, Australian composers and women composers: “Anything outside of what is considered the standard classical repertoire.”
“Mostly musicians come in and they don’t have a lot of time to prepare the music,” says Read, adding that the same can be said for live performances.
“It was never really well prepared or well performed, so people’s reaction would be: ‘Oh, this music isn’t very good’.”
“Sometimes while recording in the studio, I would do a master class for artists to come to terms with these compositions,” Read shares.
But there were also victories.
Read cites Kats-Chernin’s Eliza Aria, used in a well-known bank advertisement in the United Kingdom, as one of the success stories of a living Australian female composer investing in music.
Beyond ABC Classic, there are many musicians who support the music of different composers.
Flutist Eliza Shephard has had her fill of women’s music every March since 2020. (ABC Classic)
Spearheaded by flautist Eliza Shephard, the Women’s March began with the realization that she could count on one hand the number of works by women she had learned over decades of study.
Shephard decided to “saturate myself with women’s music by releasing a record every day of March.”
Now in its seventh year, the project has grown to include six new commissions from other female flautists and Australian female composers.
Virtuoso percussionist Claire Edwardes is another long-term champion of living composers, including women.
Clare Edwardes (center) is the artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, a group that programmed women’s music for a year in 2017. (ABC Classic)
Edwardes’ newly released seventh album, Dual Attractor, features female composers from around the world, including Edwardes herself.
ABC Classic also released a multi-year album series called Women of Note, showcasing the music of Australian female composers. The eight-volume series celebrated the music of 63 composers.
What’s happening on Australian stages and live performance?
Read says that in some parts of the music world, particularly chamber music, choirs and ensembles, music by Australian or Female composers has become a “draw card rather than a signifier”.
However, according to Lee Tungate, the picture is more complicated for large orchestras.
“When looking at the percentage of studies across the entire programme, Adelaide, Canberra and Melbourne are the strongest,” says Lee Tungate.
“Western Australia, Queensland, Sydney and Tasmania are at the lower end.”
Lee Tungate explains how it turned out.
“In 2025, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra programmed 127 works, of which only eight were by women, accounting for 6.3% of the total,” says Lee Tungate.
“This is nothing but at the lower end of the scale.”
Ella Macens (right) was one of the composers commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for its 50 Fanfares project. (Sydney Symphony Orchestra: Craig Abercrombie)
Lee Tungate points to the orchestra’s 50 Fanfares project as one of the initiatives that increase the performance of female composers.
“By comparison, 21% of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s programs are made up of female composers,” says Lee Tungate.
But averages are not the only indicator of different programming.
Lee Tungate advocates integrating the music of female composers into the general program and special events such as the International Women’s Day concert.
The lack of integration of female composers “makes women’s works more marginal,” she says.
Read and Lee Tungate note that when women’s works are programmed, they are generally shorter offerings rather than large, multi-movement symphonies.
Historically, women were unable to perform major works or were discouraged from even writing them, leading to a lack of repertoire.
Read points out that this doesn’t get easier over time.
“Scheduling and executing a large-scale job multiple times [is a challenge] Read says this situation affects all composers, not just women.
Liza Lim’s latest cello concerto won the 2025 Grawemeyer Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious composition awards. (BRSO: Astrid Ackermann)
According to Lee Tungate, the average length of music written by women is 20 minutes or less.
“The most played piece by a woman in orchestral concerts in 2025 was Anna Klein’s 12-minute overture, This Midnight Hour,” says Lee Tungate.
Being programmed is not the end of the challenges faced by female composers.
“Women’s works are often reserved for cocktail hours or omitted from some concerts,” says Lee Tungate.
The reading adds: “[Music by female composers] it is usually scheduled for only one performance as opposed to three or four.”
This means limited rehearsal time and limited sound control, making it “a struggle to record it well for broadcast or commercial release.”
What can we do to achieve equality?
There is still a long way to go for female composers to achieve equality in the music world.
Echoing Read, Lee Tungate says: “When we don’t support our own composers, it has a knock-on effect on women composers.”
Orchestras also tend to rely on new commissions to redress the balance, rather than expanding their programs to include historical female composers.
Lee Tungate singles out 19th-century composer Louise Farrenc as an example of music that could be programmed with Beethoven, as she was directly influenced by Beethoven’s music.
The music of 17th-century composer Barbara Strozzi is being revived today by artists including Australia’s Pinchgut Opera. (Pinchgut Opera: A still from “A Tender Fire”)
In an already limited space for programming, music by composers of different ethnic backgrounds and Australian First Nations often has to compete with female composers.
“There is no point in pushing for change if we are not moving forward intersectionally,” says Lee Tungate.
This is where audiences have a huge impact.
“If you regularly attend orchestral concerts, buy a ticket when your orchestra performs works by women,” says Lee Tungate.
The same goes for interacting with radio stations and platforms like ABC Classic.
Read hopes for “a renewed love for understanding the process of recording music and seeing more people, including women, doing it.”
Even as the lights dim on International Women’s Day, Hughes notes that female composers aren’t going anywhere.
“In our antipodean bubble, many of these sounds have taken root and are now embedded in the fabric of classical music.“
