Collage containing pictures of Ivanka Milojević, Anne Frank, Cardi B, and Cesaria Evora.

WSF Milestone

Women’s Song Forum sprang to life on 29 Oct. 2020, exactly six months ago. To date, not counting this message, there have been 26 posts by 18 authors, five of whom have been guest bloggers. Several of the posts have been group efforts by members of The Team, and several have been audio blogs. In all there have been 4192 sessions by 2650 visitors. Even allowing for the likelihood that many of those were fleeting visits, this is far more than any of us had thought likely seven months ago. And so … we celebrate.

To mark this milestone, we recall our very first post, Mark Burford’s essay, “When Marian Anderson Met Jean Sibelius,” which concludes with this recording from 1936:

Marian Anderson – Sibelius: Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte

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Kitty Cheatham – singer, actress, daughter of slave-owners – was committed to preserving Negro spirituals, even as her performances swore allegiance to the Lost Cause of the antebellum South.

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Women Composing as Men, Part 1

Before and after 1900 many women songwriters published their songs with male pseudonyms. Three of the most successful share an unexpected biographical trait.

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