Performing Arts Library
College of St. Catherine

Reference Books: Biography

Last updated: 21 January 2000

 

Claghorn, Gene. Women Composers and Songwriters: A Concise Biographical Dictionary. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Performing Arts Library Reference ML105 .C593 1996

 

Claghorn, Gene. Women Composers and Hymnists: A Concise Biographical Dictionary. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.
Performing Arts Library Reference BV325 .C58 1984

"...Comprehensive biographical dictionary of women hymnists and composers of church and sacred music covering all leading Protestant denominations, many Roman Catholics and a few Jewish hymnists."

 

Cohen, Aaron I. International Encyclopedia of Women Composers. New York: Bowker, 1981.
Performing Arts Library Reference ML105 .C7

 

Grattan, Virginia L. American Women Songwriters: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Performing Arts Library Reference ML106 .U3 G73 1993

"...This work profiles 181 well-known and little-known women who have written popular and motion picture songs, musicals, country, blues, jazz, folk, gospel, hymns, and nineteenth-century songs."

 

Handy, D. Antoinette. Black Women in American Bands & Orchestras. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1981.
Performing Arts Library Reference ML82 .H36

 

Hixon, Donald L. and Don Hennessee. Women in Music: a Biobibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975.
St. Paul Campus Library Reference ML105 .H6

 

LePage, Jane Weiner. Women Composers, Conductors, and Musicians of the Twentieth Century: Selected Biographies. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980- (3 vols.)
Performing Arts Library Reference ML82 .L46

The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. Edited by Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.
Performing Arts Library Reference ML105 .N38 1995

"This definitive source chronicles the lives and works of 875 women composers of Western classical music."