First of all, there are no women composers. And second of all, even if there were, they wouldn’t be any good.”

That was the comment that started it all.

It was made by a college professor whose name is not important. The names that are important, however, are the names of the women who took it upon themselves to show just how wrong he was.

Dr. Barbara Harbach, a professor of music from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, along with her former student and current friend Dr. Carole Harris, professor at Canisius College, stood up and decided to show him not only what women composers were capable of, but what women artists from all genres could do.

In 2005, Harbach spearheaded a year long, city-wide event in St. Louis that spotlighted female artists from all genres. With more than 850 individual events in 365 days, the event was a rousing success.

So Harris decided to do the same, right here in Western New York, with the Women in the Arts Festival 2008. Now, there will be a second installment – the Women in the Arts Festival 2010.
Events will be taking place throughout the month of March – and it’s no coincidence that March is National Women’s History Month, with a 2010 theme of Writing Women Back into History.

The National Women’s History Project web site says, “The history of women often seems to be written with invisible ink. Even when recognized in their own times, women are often not included in the history books.”

Harris and her colleagues are in a position to help write those pages in history, sharing some fascinating stories of some of the most strong-willed and influential women who changed the course of music history – but are rarely recognized for it.

Beginning at 5 p.m. on Sun., March 21 at the First Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, Harris and William Fay – along with organists Patrick Barrett, David Bond, Diane Green and David Snyder and the women’s choral group Voces Regales from Lewiston – will be presenting Sisters in Song: The Music of Sister Theophane Hytrek and Hildegard von Bingen.

Sister Theophane Hytrek was born in Nebraska in 1915. Her entire family was musically inclined, and she was encouraged by not only her parents but by her siblings as well.

When she went on to college at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music (Milkwaukee), she found her true calling – composition, harmony and musical analysis. In her own words: “Then one day I felt I had crossed the threshold, and that I was now on the inside of a composer’s laboratory--no longer on the outside looking in.”

Her works has been performed at the First Annual Congress of Women Composers, and has gone on to win a number of awards and earn her several honorary doctorates.

Her last recital was held at the St. Joseph Convent Chapel on Aug. 7, 1992; she passed away suddenly less than a week later.

Featured alongside this modern composer will be her counterpart, born more than 900 years earlier.

Hildegard von Bingen was born in 1098, in a small town in Germany. She was the tenth child of a lesser noble, and as was tradition when a family couldn’t provide for their children, she was sent to the church.

She was enclosed with Jutta von Sponheim in the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. She took her vows as a nun, and was elected magistra (spiritual teacher) of the community.

In 1141 she began having visions, which she said she was commanded by God to write down. She began to travel and teach divine favor, and gained a reputation of authority nearly on par with John the Evangelist. Her doctrine was non-traditional but never deemed heretical, and she became extraordinarily popular.

She is also responsible for the first known mortality play set to music, created when she sat down to pen Ordo uirtutem in 1150.

She also penned the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum, or Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations, collected in 1174/75 and thought to have been written between 1151 and 1158. The 77 individual chants were meant to be used either in the Divine Office, Mass, or even her own sermons.

She described music as a way of capturing the beauty found in paradise, and wrote in honor of the saints and figures like the Virgin Mary. The text of her songs is bright and filled with imagery, visions from an 11th century healer, composer and teacher.

“She was an incredible force in a time when women had no power,” says Harris.

Her extensive - and little known - contributions make her the perfect complement to Sister Theophane Hytrek in spotlighting the contributions of female musicians.

Harris and Harbach are doing more than just making sure women like Sister Theophane and Hildegard aren’t forgotten; they’re also making sure that no one else will ever think that there are no women composers, much less think that they’re no good.

For more information, including a complete schedule of events, contact Dr. Carole Harris at harris67@canisius.edu or 957-7927.

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