Women composers
Subject in Music History
Women composers has come up in 1 episode across 1 podcast in TMT, including TED Radio Hour. 1 person has made recorded remarks about it.
What people said
Gabriella Di LaccioBrazilian-born classical soprano and founder of the Donne Foundation, which documents women composers
Di Laccio argues that audiences love Mozart partly through familiarity, a privilege forgotten women composers lack.
“We have the chance to have familiarity. These women don't get that privilege anymore. So familiarity is needed”
TED Radio Hour: The women missing from music (Oct 2, 2026) · Listen from 31:05
Di Laccio insists her goal is to expand the canon rather than reduce performances of composers like Mozart.
“It's not about taking people off the list. Yes. It's putting more people on the list”
TED Radio Hour: The women missing from music (Oct 2, 2026) · Listen from 25:28
Di Laccio argues that this erasure creates an unconscious bias leading people to assume women did not create music.
“That creates an unconscious bias on all of us because we grow up not knowing and we grow up just accepting like I did”
TED Radio Hour: The women missing from music (Oct 2, 2026) · Listen from 10:41
Di Laccio suggests that male authors of history books chose not to preserve women's contributions.
“who was writing the history books? A lot of men were in charge, I guess, and perhaps they didn't think we should keep this”
TED Radio Hour: The women missing from music (Oct 2, 2026) · Listen from 9:30
Podcasts
- TED Radio Hour · 1 episode
Episodes
The women missing from musicTED Radio Hour · Oct 2, 2026 · 50 min
Manoush Zomorodi talks with soprano Gabriella Di Laccio about forgotten women composers and AI, then airs Nadya Tolokonnikova's TED Talk on Pussy Riot's resistance.