August is the time many church musicians begin planning for Advent through Pentecost. There is a multitude of composers to choose from for new music and, of course, well-known favorites. As we begin our preparations, we try to reflect the readings and prayers of a day through our organ selections, choir anthems and hand bell repertoire. However, there are many compositions of a general nature that fit many different contexts. One of these is Organ Music by Women Composers before 1800 - VIV 303. We know that women have been composing organ music for at least five centuries. Calvert Johnson, the editor of the volume writes in the preface, “The first organist, Thais, was the wife of Ctesibos, the inventor of the organ, in the third century BCE, at Alexandria, Egypt, but very few organ compositions by women before 1800 have survived. There is considerable iconographic evidence from antiquity of the activities of women organists, many of them Christian, because their sarcophagi depict the organ.”
Read More > >Barbara Harbach
Dr. Barbara Harbach, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has a large catalog of works, including; symphonies, operas, string orchestra, musicals, works for chamber ensembles, film scores, modern ballet, pieces for organ, harpsichord and piano; choral anthems; and many arrangements for brass and organ of various Baroque works. She is also involved in the research, editing, publication and recording of manuscripts of eighteenth-century keyboard composers, as well as historical and contemporary women composers. Her work is available in both recorded and published form through MSR Classics, Naxos Records, Gasparo Records, Kingdom Records, Albany Records, Northeastern Records, Hester Park, Robert King Music, Elkan-Vogel, Augsburg Fortress, Encore Music Publishers, Art of Sound Music, Agape Music and Vivace Press. Harbach serves as editor of the WomenArts Quarterly Journal.
