Donne - Women in Music

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Donne - Women in Music

The Global Voice for Women in Music 🌍 | Empowering Women. Celebrating Creativity. Reshaping Music 🎶 | Founded by ✨

07/10/2026

Meet the most-performed woman composer in the world. 🎶

In our 2025–2026 research, 110 orchestras across 30 countries scheduled 20,091 works. Only 8.5% were composed by women, and at the top of that list is Swedish composer Kerstin Andeby, with 150 works.
Millions of Swedes know her songs. Maja's Alphabet Songs, set to verses by Lena Anderson, has 26 songs, one for every letter of the alphabet. They are sung at school-ending ceremonies across Sweden every year. The album won a Grammis in 1993 and a gold record in 2001.

Kerstin Andeby is a living composer, and she ranks 29th overall among all composers programmed this season. Yet the top 10 women together account for just 2.4% of works.

Swipe to read more ➡️ and find the full report at the link in our bio.

06/10/2026

Which orchestras are programming the most music by women? 🎻

In Donne's new research on 110 orchestras across 30 countries, only 8.5% of the works programmed in the 2025–2026 season were by women composers. But some orchestras are showing what's possible.
In the full report, you'll also find orchestras ranked by gender diversity, racial and ethnic diversity, and both combined, each one measured by number of works and by time (minutes of music performed). 📊

Swipe to meet the ten leading the way and read the full report, Equality & Diversity in Global Repertoire: Orchestras Season 2025–2026, at donne-uk.org (link in bio).

02/10/2026

Rebecca Clarke was a violist, a composer, and one of the first women to play in a professional London orchestra. Her Sonata for Viola and Piano remains a cornerstone of the repertoire.

Which of her works would you recommend? 👇

30/09/2026

What would happen if we counted how many minutes have been given to men and women (composers) on orchestral seasons around the world?

The result: the equivalent of 16 days for women and 344 days for men.

Wait what?

Yes. Watch the video ⤴️. Read the report. Share!

💪 We can change this!

29/09/2026

Works and minutes tell two different stories about who gets to be heard in the concert hall.

Gender and race shape representation together, and both need to be part of the conversation when we talk about who gets space in music.

28/09/2026

Before the star on Hollywood Boulevard, there was a girl singing inside a community that didn't always make room for her voice. Angelique Kidjo on what it took — and who stood by her — to keep singing anyway.

18/09/2026

📣 Calling women composers who write for orchestra.

On 24 September, we’re launching Donne’s latest Equality & Diversity in Global Repertoire research at the Royal Albert Hall — and we want women composers in the room when we reveal the findings.

We’ve saved 10 seats for women composers who:
🎼 Write for orchestra 🇬🇧 Are based in London or nearby ✅ Can definitely attend 9.30am–12.30pm (this is very important!)

Want one of the seats?

DM us your email address. The first 10 composers who meet the criteria will receive an invitation.

Please only respond if you are 100% sure that you can attend.

See you at the Royal Albert Hall. ❤️

17/09/2026

Hilary Hahn ()
didn't overhaul her repertoire overnight.

She built it — one piece at a time, one composer at a time — until room opened up for women, black, asian and so many composers alongside the canon she grew up with.

Representation isn't a single decision. It's a practice.

📽️ Unmute The Voices l Youtube

15/09/2026

For over five decades she wrote, arranged, mentored and reinvented. The giants of jazz sat at her piano and took notes.

Her name should be as familiar as theirs.
Swipe through the story of Mary Lou Williams.

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