It started with the discovery of a notice for a three-day music festival in 1925 in Washington D.C.: a festival featuring all women composers. Pianist Dr. Joanna Goldstein's new album, Nasty Women, is a collection of, largely, unknown women composers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Listen to my conversation with Dr. Goldstein about the lives and careers of these important American composers.
What I found out is that these women were really well-trained; educated at Peabody, the Cincinnati Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and Juilliard; and studied, of course with Nadia Boulanger as did most other well-known composers at the time. Yet, they were not really being played anymore, and the confluence of that also coming five years after the 19th Amendment where women finally got the vote, getting their political voice. And I thought oh, okay, so here they are expressing their artistic voice. - Dr. Joanna Goldstein
