Introduction: The “Post(?)-Feminist” Moment in Contemporary Classical Music

The introductory chapter gives an overview of the collection’s breadth of focus, arising from the composer-authors themselves, and pointing to the wealth of divergent approaches embraced by women in contemporary composition. I tease apart the sub-themes that come to light in the chapters and the commonalities and points of divergence between the authors’ accounts of their work, and, in many cases, of their career in composition over a lifetime. Issues pertaining to race, non-heteronormative gender/sexuality and ethnicity are canvassed; composers’ musical languages are detailed, with particular attention on distinct philosophically-based approaches to musical time and the phenomenology of sound. Collaborative processes, traversing a wide range of applications, are also a feature. The discussion situates the chapters within Fourth-Wave feminism, elucidating the ways in which the collection not only showcases the creative work of women composers, but at the same time, tests the appositeness of contemporary feminist theory for new “classical” music as it manifests in practice. The insights arising from this book serve to address the question of whether the current era can truly be termed “post-feminist” for composers who are women.