Archiv Frau und Musik

The Archiv Frau und Musik (Women and Music Archive) is an international music archive based in Frankfurt am Main, devoted mainly to music by women composers. It was founded in Cologne in 1979 on the initiative of the conductor Elke Mascha Blankenburg (1943–2013).

This music archive is the seat of the Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frau und Musik e. V. (IAK) (International Working Group on Women and Music) and receives institutional funding from the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts and the City of Frankfurt am Main. In October 2013 the specialist archive was included in the ninth Rote Liste Kultur (Red List of Culture) of the Deutscher Kulturrat (German Cultural Council) and classified in category 2 as endangered,¹ because the City of Frankfurt had discontinued its previous financial support in January 2013. Since 2018 the Archiv Frau und Musik has been on a stable footing again.²

Project funding has been raised from the Frankfurter Stiftung maecenia für Frauen in Wissenschaft und Kunst, the Crespo Foundation, the Mariann Steegmann Foundation and the Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv (German Digital Women’s Archive).³

History

Elke Mascha Blankenburg
Photo: Christel Becker-Rau

In autumn 1977 the magazine Emma published the article “Vergessene Komponistinnen” (Forgotten Women Composers) by the conductor Elke Mascha Blankenburg.⁴⁵ Shortly afterwards, women musicians and composers, mainly from West Germany and Western Europe, came together to found a working group. Blankenburg’s call “to track down and perform compositions by women”,⁶ was put into practice by her and the members of the Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frau und Musik e. V. (IAK), founded in 1979. By October 1979 four meetings of the working group had taken place, and membership shot up to more than 100. The first board consisted of Elke Mascha Blankenburg as first chair, the pianist and composer Siegrid Ernst (1929–2022) as second chair and the composer Barbara Heller (b. 1936) as third chair.

“If you ask the question: are there women composers, then the next question inevitably follows: where are their works?”, says Renate Matthei (b. 1954), chair of the IAK from 1992 to 2011. Elke Mascha Blankenburg began to comb through the entire music holdings of the Institute of Musicology in Cologne and eventually came across a surprisingly large number of women composers: “I was aware that I was initiating a correction of music history, which until then had suppressed women composers.”⁷ Her discovery prompted even more intensive research in this field. Within one year, with the help of the IAK members, some 300 names of women composers had been found in various music libraries – the foundation of the Archiv Frau und Musik.

What started as a private initiative quickly grew into a major institution in the field of women and music. After seven years of voluntary work, permanent funding made it possible to employ permanent staff on a regular and qualified basis. In addition, with the help of the City of Kassel, the archive moved into premises of its own for the first time. After three further moves, the archive is now located in the hoffmanns höfe in Frankfurt am Main.

In 2019 the Archiv Frau und Musik celebrated its 40th anniversary with a large ceremony featuring music and speeches in the great hall of Frankfurt’s Römer.⁸

Areas of work

Reading room of the Archiv Frau und Musik
Photo: Andrea Späth Fotodesign

The Archiv Frau und Musik in Frankfurt am Main is a reference library and a collection on women music creators, with a focus on women composers and conductors, and has an online catalogue. It offers:

expert advice and specialised research;
support in preparing concert programmes and in writing academic papers;
guided tours of the archive’s (exhibition) rooms;
lectures and workshops by staff members (databases/research options, canon research, the history of women in music, the working conditions of women music creators past and present, individual selected women composers).
It is also possible to donate the papers and estates of women composers to the Archiv Frau und Musik or to place them there on permanent loan.

Management

The archive is managed by the board of the IAK. For a long time the board consisted of Renate Matthei (1992–2011), Renate Brosch (1994–2012) and Dietburg Spohr (1994–2008, 2010–2011). Between 2009 and 2012 the board, in changing compositions, included Angelika Seegers (2009–2012) and, from 2010, also Susanne Erding-Swiridoff, Prof. Violeta Dinescu, Dr. Silvia Merk, Prof. Dr. Vivienne Olive, Dr. Cornelia Preissinger and Dr. Julia Cloot.
From 2013 the executive board consisted of the musicologist Mary Ellen Kitchens, the composer Prof. Dr. Vivienne Olive and the sociologist Dr. Vera Lasch; from October 2017 it consisted of Mary Ellen Kitchens, Dr. Vera Lasch and the guitarist Heike Matthiesen (1964–2023). Currently it consists of Mary Ellen Kitchens, the systemic counsellor, music journalist and online editor Maria Bätzing, and the organist, choir director, educator and voice trainer Andrea Hartenfeller (as of 2026). The extended board comprises the pianist Fidan Aghayeva-Edler, the choir director Mareike Hilbrig, the conductor, researcher, composer and pianist Andréa Huguenin Botelho, the composer Prof. Dr. Vivienne Olive, the pianist Angela Schmidt and the pianist Uta Walther (as of 2026).

Memberships

i.d.a.-Dachverband der deutschsprachigen Frauen-/Lesbenarchive (umbrella organisation of German-language women’s/lesbian archives)
IAWM – International Alliance for Women in Music
Deutscher Musikrat (German Music Council)
IAML – International Association of Music Libraries
GEMA – Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte
Musica International – Virtuelle Chormusik-Bibliothek
Gesellschaft für Musikforschung (GfM) (Society for Music Research)

Holdings

The archive’s holdings comprise some 28,000 media units: compositions, artistic estates of women musicians, newspaper articles, brochures, secondary literature, images and sound recordings, as well as academic papers on women musicians and composers and so-called grey literature such as letters, programme booklets and the like.
Among other things, the archive has been able to acquire the estates of Felicitas Kukuck (1914–2001) and Silvia Leonor Alvarez de la Fuente (1953–2004). Since 2015 the (partial) estates of Elke Mascha Blankenburg (1943–2013) and Leni Alexander (1924–2005) have also been held there. Numerous active women composers such as Violeta Dinescu (b. 1953) and Tsippi Fleischer (b. 1946) are already contributing their works to the Archiv Frau und Musik. In 2001 the extensive collection of the Munich association musica femina münchen – the Komponistinnen-Archiv München (KAM) (Munich Women Composers’ Archive) – came to the Archiv Frau und Musik as a donation. The Frankfurt archive’s further holdings include an extensive stock of first editions and handwritten letters by Clara Schumann as well as the world’s largest collection of postcards of women’s wind orchestras from around 1900.⁹ The holdings of classical compositions are complemented by a special collection covering rock, pop, jazz, chanson and world music. In total, the archive holds works by more than 2,000 international women composers from the 9th to the 21st century.¹⁰

Projects

Composer in Residence: Every three years the Archiv Frau und Musik awards a three-month working fellowship to women composers. Women composers of all ages and nationalities are invited to apply. Both self-applications and nominations by experts and institutions are accepted. The call for applications is issued in cooperation with the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main (HfMDK) (Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts) and the Institut für zeitgenössische Musik (Institute for Contemporary Music, integrated into the HfMDK). The scope and type of artistic work to be carried out during the stay in Frankfurt am Main are not prescribed. The fellow is selected by an expert jury made up of one representative each of the IAK, the Institut für zeitgenössische Musik of the HfMDK Frankfurt am Main, a media partner and an active performer of contemporary music. The fellow is free to shape her work as she wishes, although a connection to the city is desirable. In addition, there is a cooperation with the HfMDK school project Response, in which children and young people encounter contemporary music and respond to it with improvisations and compositions of their own. Previous fellows: Sun-Young Pahg/South Korea (2009), Belma Bešlić-Gál/Bosnia (2011), Manuela Kerer/Italy (2015), Tania Rubio/Mexico (2019) and Farzia Fallah/Cologne (2021).¹¹ Because of the pandemic, the 2021 fellowship was advertised only nationally.¹²
#PARFUMO. Projekt ARchiv Frau Und Musik Online (Project Archive Women and Music Online): launched in 2018, its aim was to digitise selected archival records and exhibits from the archive and make them accessible, with funding from the Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv (DDF). This resulted in seven specialist articles published online in the DDF, including the first more comprehensive biography of the archive’s founder Elke Mascha Blankenburg.¹³
#MASCHA. Musik-Akteurinnen SCHaffen Aufmerksamkeit (Women in Music Create Attention): in 2019 – likewise with funding from the DDF – interviews were conducted with important representatives of women’s music movements, including Gloria Coates, Barbara Heller, Annette Schlünz, Dr. Birgit Kiupel, Prof. h. c. Siegrid Ernst, Renate Matthei, Prof. Dr. Eva Rieger and Prof. Dr. Vivienne Olive.¹⁴
Wir geben den Ton an: Chancengleichheit für Komponistinnen* (We Set the Tone: Equal Opportunities for Women* Composers): the three-year project funded by the Mariann Steegmann Foundation started in 2019 with a collecting focus on choral works by women* composers. In the following years the focus shifted to works for children and young people, teaching materials for schools and music lessons, and works for string instruments.¹⁵
#WoraufWartenWir?: in 2020 the third digitisation project funded by the DDF was launched, covering the estates of the composers Weronika Aleksandra Markiewicz (1962–2003), Silvia Leonor Alvarez de la Fuente (1953–2004), Leni Alexander (1924–2005) and Felicitas Kukuck (1914–2001).
Digitale Chortage: #Ortswechsel. Chormusik von Komponistinnen (Digital Choir Days: #ChangeOfScene. Choral Music by Women Composers): from 29 October to 1 November 2020 the Archiv Frau und Musik held an online conference on the #WoraufWartenWir? composers and on the choral conductor and singing teacher Margarete Dessoff (1874–1944).¹⁶
On 8 March 2021 the study Women in High-Visibility Roles in German Berufsorchester, prepared by the German Chancellor Fellow Melissa Panlasigui and published jointly by the Archiv Frau und Musik and musica femina münchen, appeared; it examines the proportion of women in prominent positions in German professional orchestras.¹⁷
Digitales Bildungspaket: Komponistinnen in den Schulunterricht! (Digital Education Package: Women Composers into the Classroom!, published in June 2021) is an education package designed and written by Elisabeth Treydte, aimed at teachers at general schools and conceived for lower secondary level. A collection of materials was compiled for it, because regular school textbooks have so far focused only on the traditional canon of male composers. Using the third symphony of the composer Louise Farrenc (1804–1875), the education package fills a gap in the presentation of music history.¹⁸
So begann alles!: (That’s How It All Began!) cataloguing of correspondence from the papers of Barbara Heller (b. 1936) and the estate of Elke Mascha Blankenburg (1943–2013) for the year 2021/2022.¹⁹
#WIMUGG! – Women in Music: Gehört, gesehen!: (Women in Music: Heard, Seen!) in 2022 the Archiv Frau und Musik began a further project within the framework of the Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv (DDF). This year the focus is on the archive’s concert-related media. Over more than 40 years of the archive’s history, programme booklets, flyers and posters have been collected; they go back as far as the 1940s and show where and which works by women composers were performed. A cooperation with the Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB) (Saxon State and University Library Dresden), the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (BSB) (Bavarian State Library Munich) and with musiconn as a database project of the SLUB.
In 2026 Fanni Mülot, a member of the presidium of the Hessian state association of the Bundesverband Amateurmusik Sinfonie- und Kammerorchester (BDLO) (Federal Association of Amateur Symphony and Chamber Orchestras), together with the Archiv Frau und Musik and the BDLO’s sheet music library, organised an orchestral academy for amateur musicians with pieces by women from four centuries.²⁰

Prizes and awards

Kulturförderpreis der Stadt Kassel (Cultural Promotion Prize of the City of Kassel) 1994²¹
Förderpreis der Dr.-Wolfgang-Zippel-Stiftung (Promotion Prize of the Dr. Wolfgang Zippel Foundation) 1996²²
Förderpreis der Dierichs-Stiftung Kassel (Promotion Prize of the Dierichs Foundation Kassel) 1999²³
Musikeditionspreis (Music Edition Prize) 2005 for the anniversary edition 25 PLUS Piano Solo of the Archiv Frau und Musik²⁴

Publications (selection)

Cover of the 100th issue of the magazine VivaVoce
Photo: Bildwerke Kassel

From 1993 to 2015 the Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frau und Musik/Archiv Frau und Musik published the magazine VivaVoce, the only German-language specialist publication in this field. It appeared two to three times a year. Previously, the newsletter was simply called Info. The magazine contained interviews with women composers and conductors, specialist articles on historical and contemporary women composers, and concert, book and CD reviews. In addition, VivaVoce offered a forum for everyone actively involved in public musical life. As part of a digitisation project of the Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv (DDF), all issues of Info and VivaVoce were digitised; they can be searched via the DDF’s META catalogue.
Until 2004 the IAK published a multi-volume book series Frau und Musik, including the Noten 1990 (vol. 1, Kassel 1990), Hoffmann, Freia/Rieger, Eva (eds.): Von der Spielfrau zur Performancekünstlerin. Auf der Suche nach einer Musikgeschichte der Frauen (vol. 2, Kassel 1992) and the Noten 1994 (vol. 3, Kassel 1994), as well as the
Europäischer Dirigentinnen-Reader (vol. 4, Kassel 2002, 200 pages)²⁵ as a research work by Elke Mascha Blankenburg. This reader is the first comprehensive musicological study of the women conductors active at the time: “Until then there had been no academic or even systematically conducted study on the subject, nor was there any statistically reliable data.”²⁶
25 Plus Piano Solo (vol. 5, Frankfurt am Main 2004) with an accompanying double CD for the 25th anniversary of the Archiv Frau und Musik, featuring music by 25 (and more) women composers.
Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frau und Musik e. V.: Digitales Bildungspaket: Komponistinnen in den Schulunterricht. Collection of materials, compiled by Elisabeth Treydte, for easier access to music by women composers. Frankfurt am Main 2021. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/digitales-bildungspaket-komponistinnen-in-den-schulunterricht (accessed on 18 July 2022).
Melissa Panlasigui: Frauenanteil Berufsorchester. Studie zur Saison 2019/2020. In: Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frau und Musik e. V./musica femina münchen e. V. (eds.). Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/frauenanteil-berufsorchester-studie-zur-saison-2019-2020 (accessed on 18 July 2022).

External links

Literature by and about Frau und Musik, Internationaler Arbeitskreis in the catalogue of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library)
Website of the Archiv Frau und Musik
Catalogue of the Archiv Frau und Musik
Digitised material from the Archiv Frau und Musik
Promotional film of the Archiv Frau und Musik, uploaded on 18 May 2020. English version with English subtitles

Machine translation: This article was translated automatically from the German original.

1
Deutsches Musikinformationszentrum: Kulturrat veröffentlicht aktuelle Rote Liste der bedrohten Kultureinrichtunen. Online at: https://miz.org/de/nachrichten/kulturrat-veroeffentlicht-aktuelle-rote-liste-der-bedrohten-kultureinrichtungen-n10509 (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
2
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Über das Archiv. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/uber-das-archiv (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
3
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Fördernde Institutionen. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/foerdernde-institutionen (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
4
Blankenburg, Elke Mascha (1977): Vergessene Komponistinnen. In: Alice Schwarzer (ed.): Emma, no. 11, pp. 44–46. Available online at https://www.emma.de/lesesaal/45142#pages/pageId-00420475782c0d4a48342438332e85c8982d332 (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
5
Bernhard, Anne-Marie/Wosnitzka, Susanne (2021): Elke Mascha Blankenburg. In: Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv. Online at: https://www.digitales-deutsches-frauenarchiv.de/akteurinnen/elke-mascha-blankenburg (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
6
Bernhard, Anne-Marie/Wosnitzka, Susanne (2021): Elke Mascha Blankenburg. In: Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv. Online at: https://www.digitales-deutsches-frauenarchiv.de/akteurinnen/elke-mascha-blankenburg (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
7
Blankenburg, Elke Mascha (2003): Dirigentinnen im 20. Jahrhundert. Porträts von Marin Alsop bis Simone Young. Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, ISBN 978-3-434-50536-5, p. 269. ↩︎
8
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Jubiläum 40 Jahre AFM. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/jubilaeum-40-jahre-afm (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
9
Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: Wir sind die DDB – Das Archiv Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/content/journal/entdecken/wir-sind-die-ddb-das-archiv-frau-und-musik (accessed on 15 November 2022). ↩︎
10
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Bestandsüberblick. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/bestandsueberblick (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
11
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Composer in Residence. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/projekte/composer-in-residence (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
12
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): CiR2021 #SpecialEdition: Farzia Fallah. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/projekte/composer-in-residence/cir2021-special-edition (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
13
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): #PARFUMO. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/parfumo (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
14
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): #MASCHA. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/mascha (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
15
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Wir geben den Ton an: Chancengleichheit für Komponistinnen*. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/wir-geben-den-ton-an-chancengleichheit-fuer-komponistinnen (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
16
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Digitale Chortage: #Ortswechsel. Chormusik von Komponistinnen. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/digitale-chortage-ortswechsel-chormusik-von-komponistinnen (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
17
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Frauenanteil Berufsorchester. Studie zur Saison 2019/2020. In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/frauenanteil-berufsorchester-studie-zur-saison-2019-2020 (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
18
Treydte, Elisabeth (2022): Digitales Bildungspaket: Komponistinnen in den Schulunterricht! In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/digitales-bildungspaket-komponistinnen-in-den-schulunterricht (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
19
Archiv Frau und Musik (2022): Korrespondenzprojekt So begann alles! In: Webseite des Archivs Frau und Musik. Online at: https://www.archiv-frau-musik.de/korrespondenzprojekt (accessed on 3 July 2022). ↩︎
20
Allihn, Karen (2026): Bühne für Komponistinnen. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, article of 4 March, p. 10. Online at: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/kultur/komponistinnen-zum-frauentag-orchesterwerkstatt-fuer-laien-in-frankfurt-accg-200590696.html (accessed on 9 March 2026). ↩︎
21
Hein, Christina (1994): Auch vom Rotstift bedroht. In: Hessische Allgemeine HNA, article of 6 December (n. p.). ↩︎
22
Historical newspaper clipping from an unnamed newspaper, possibly from Kassel, editorial contribution, 11 September 1996. In: Archiv Frau und Musik, Dokumentation 1995–1996 (folder). ↩︎
23
Buchauer, Ute (1999): Archiv Frau und Musik Kassel erhält Preis der Dierichs-Stiftung. In: Archiv Frau und Musik (ed.): VivaVoce. No. 51, December 1999, p. 30. ↩︎
24
Archiv Frau und Musik (ed.) (2005): VivaVoce. No. 71, Summer 2005, p. 27. ↩︎
25
Archiv Frau und Musik (ed.) (2002): Europäischer Dirigentinnen-Reader (= Schriftenreihe Frau und Musik. vol. 4). Kassel: Furore-Verlag, ISBN 3-927327-55-7, p. 5 ff. ↩︎
26
Brosch, Renate/Matthei, Renate/Spohr, Dietburg (2002): Kapellmeisterin statt Generalmusikdirektorin. Zur aktuellen Situation von Dirigentinnen im klassischen Musikbetrieb. In: Archiv Frau und Musik (ed.): Europäischer Dirigentinnen-Reader (= Schriftenreihe Frau und Musik. vol. 4). Kassel: Furore-Verlag, ISBN 3-927327-55-7, p. 6. ↩︎

Archive, Composers, Frankfurt, Music

Empfohlene Zitierweise

Susanne Wosnitzka
(2022)
: Archiv Frau und Musik. In: Equalpedia.

Online unter:

https://www.equalpedia.org/en/archiv-frau-und-musik-2/

(Zugriff am 28. September 2026).

Erstellt am: 23. September 2026
Verfasser*in: Susanne Wosnitzka
Zuletzt bearbeitet am: 24. September 2026
Culture, Institutions, Music, Science
Archive, Composers, Frankfurt, Music