Free course aims to raise the profile of women composers in classical music

Posted on 18 June 2025 • Arts and social sciences, University news

A new free course from The Open University’s OpenLearn site has been launched aimed at helping performers in the classical music industry to diversify their repertoire to include more works by women composers.

The short course called “Women transforming classical music” spans just six hours, and is aimed at ensembles, individuals and organisations within the classical music industry.

Back in 2024, a study by Donne Women in Music of 111 of the world’s most well-known orchestras, discovered that only 7.5 per cent of the music they performed was composed by women.

Dr Laura Hamer, Staff Tutor and Senior Lecturer in Music at The Open University is one of the writers on the new OpenLearn course.

Gabriella Di Lacci, the founder of Donne, who is a professional classical opera singer, also had a hand in shaping the course, as did other music professionals.

Interactive course

The course challenges people to take a long look at how they have chosen their classical repertoires to perform and whether they are male-dominated.

It encourages positive change by including music composed by women and it is designed to be interactive. You can even see interviews with Gabriella and other leading industry experts.

In one four-minute-long chat, Gabriella, who has just been awarded an MBE for music and gender equality, says it is often the lack of access to music scores composed by women that becomes a significant barrier.

She explains: “What happens is that music is not played. It doesn’t get recorded. If it doesn’t get recorded, we don’t listen on the radio. We don’t listen on Spotify or any streaming… we don’t get any familiarity with that music. Then we live in this vicious cycle.”

Many pieces by women composers unpublished

She says there are many pieces by female composers that have never been published and still exist only in handwritten manuscript form.

Laura said: “I’ve been researching the music of women composers for many years, but what I really want to see is more of their music being programmed.

“I speak with a lot of performers and programmers who would really like to perform more music by women, but don’t always know where to start.

“This course is intended to offer practical advice and support about finding works, scores, and resources; preparing performance editions; and promoting the work of women composers, both historical and contemporary. I would love to see more works by women being programmed as a result.”

To check out the course and take part click on the link here.

OpenLearn has users from all over the world who want to supplement their formal learning; need help choosing their future learning pathway or want to access the course purely for the fun of learning.

OpenLearn has attracted more than 100 million visitors to the free learning site since it was launched in 2006, which has resulted in many people catching the learning bug who went on to become Open University students.