6 LGBTQI+ Composers you should listen TODAY

Equality should be celebrated every day and Donne's main goal is to AMPLIFY all the voices.

We would like to invite you to listen to these amazing LGTBQI+ composers during June, the PRIDE MONTH! And don't forget to share.

Do you have any other names to suggest? We would love to make a part two of this list! Let us know!

And happy listening!

ETHEL SMYTH - USA

Dame Ethel Smyth (1858 - 1944) was a queer English composer, writer and a member of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Her works consists in Operas, Piano Solos, Orchestras, Vocals, Chamber Musics and Organ Solos.

Listen to her here:

PAULINE OLIVEROS - USA

Pauline Oliveros was an American composer and accordionist. She had an important role in the development of electronic art music. 

Listen to her here:

 

WENDY CARLOS - USA

Wendy Carlos is a transsexual american musician and composer known for her electronic music and film soundtracks. She made musics for A Clockwork Orange, The Shinning, Tron and others. She also made an album with the music from Bach synthesized and won three Grammy Awards! 

Listen to her here:

JENNIFER HIGDON - USA

Jennifer Higdon is an American Composer of Classical Music and a teacher. She won several prizes including a Pulitzer Prize for Music and two Grammy Awards! She met her wife in high school and they live today in Philadelphia. 

Listen to her here:

 

KRISTIN NORDERVAL - USA

Kristin Norderval is a LGBTQI+ composer and performer. She is a master in the art of improvisations - from classical music to jazz. As a composer, she tries to explore the nuances of the human voice. 

Listen to her here:

DEBORAH CHEETHAM - AUSTRALIA

Deborah Cheetam is a world-renowned Indigenous opera singer, composer, playwright and creator of Australia’s first Indigenous opera @shortblackopera, with a passion and strong commitment to improving access to careers in the arts for young Indigenous Australians.⁠

Listen do her here:

JUNE 18

SHIRLEY MIER - USA

Born 18 June

More about her here

Find scores by Shirley Mier:

RENE ORTH - USA
Born 18 June

More about her here

Find scores by Rene Orth:

 Check here last year's composers of the day

30 MAY 2019

LYDIA AUSTER - KAZAKHSTAN

BORN 30 MAY

Lydia Auster studied piano in Omsk Music School in 1927–1931 with L. Shcherbakova and composition with M. Nevitov. In 1931–1934, she studied composition in Leningrad Conservatoire with Mikhail Judin. In 1938, she graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire with a degree in composition with Vissarion Shebalin, and continued postgraduate studies in 1938–1941 and 1944–1945.

Lydia Auster has worked as a pianist with Omsk Radio Sinfonietta and as a cinema pianist. In 1941–1943, she was working as a composer with Ashgabat Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1943 to 1944, Auster was the chief editor of music broadcasts in Turkmenistan Radio, in 1948–1984, she was the music director of Estonian SSR Television and Radio Committee. Between 1950 and 1989, Auster was the chairman of USSR Music Foundation's Estonian Republic Department. Lydia Auster has been a board member of Estonian Composers' Union as well as Estonian Department of USSR – Czechoslovakia Friendship Society. In 1957, Auster received the honorary title of Estonian SSR Merited Art Worker and in 1984, the title of People’s Artist of the Estonian SSR.

Lydia Auster's oeuvre is versatile in genre, she has written orchestral and stage works, including 4 ballets and a short opera, as well as solo songs and instrumental chamber music. Her music has poetic expression and a strong connection with folk music.

Her ballet Tiina (1955) has been staged in theatre Estonia in Tallinn and theatre Vanemuine in Tartu, also in Vilnius and Olomouc, Czech Republic. Her ballet Northen Dream (1960) has been staged in theatre Estonia and in Vilnius, Lithuania. Her orchestral works have been conducted by such conductors as Rostislav Merkulov, Kirill Raudsepp, Roman Matsov, Vallo Järvi, Erich Järvi, Aleksander Rjabov, Neeme Järvi and Eri Klas. Her music for winds has been often played by Jaan Tamm Wind Quintet.

♫ LISTEN 

Piano Concerto Op. 18 by Lydia Auster 

➺ Find scores by Lydia Auster  

PAULINE OLIVEROS  - USA
BORN 30 MAY

Pauline Oliveros' life as a composer, performer and humanitarian was about opening her own and others' sensibilities to the universe and facets of sounds. Her career spanned fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. In the '50s she was part of a circle of iconoclastic composers, artists, poets gathered together in San Francisco. In the 1960's she influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. 

She was the recipient of four Honorary Doctorates and among her many recent awards were the William Schuman Award for Lifetime Achievement, Columbia University, New York, NY,The Giga-Hertz-Award for Lifetime Achievement in Electronic Music from ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany and The John Cage award from from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts.

Oliveros was Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, and Darius Milhaud Artist-in-Residence at Mills College. She founded "Deep Listening ®," which came from her childhood fascination with sounds and from her works in concert music with composition, improvisation and electro-acoustics. She described Deep Listening as a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of one's own thoughts as well as musical sounds. 

'Deep Listening is my life practice," Oliveros explained, simply. Oliveros founded Deep Listening Institute, formerly Pauline Oliveros Foundation, now the Center For Deep Listening at Rensselaer, Troy, NY. Her creative work is currently disseminated through The Pauline Oliveros Trust and the Ministry of Maåt, Inc.

♫ LISTEN

Buffalo Jam by Pauline Oliveros

➺ Pauline Olivero's Website