Your editorial on female composers (29 September) is certainly welcome, but I take issue with a comment in it. You refer to the dictionary published by Aaron Cohen that listed 5,000 women composers (actually, more) and compare the New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (1994) which listed “only 875”. But anyone could submit entries to Cohen’s dictionary – they were all published.
The New Grove Dictionary, on the other hand, was the product of tremendous critical evaluation and editorial checking from contributors across the world. It offered the women in it an imprimatur equivalent to that of male colleagues. As a publication that emanated from the heart of the classical music establishment, it was ground-breaking. Dare I say it was a catalyst for the present surge of interest in women composers.
Rhian Samuel
Composer and co-editor, New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers
• For music lovers to be able to listen to performances by unknown composers, it would help to have recordings available and airtime devoted to those unfamiliar works. This month, Beyond Twilight: Music for Cello & Piano by Female Composers will be released. Taking a grassroots initiative, the cellist Alexandra Mackenzie and the pianist Ingrid Sawers selected 14 works, which they believe deserve to be better known.
Woody Caan
Duxford, Cambridgeshire
• We are a long way from the time when the only women allowed in symphony orchestras were harpists, and when the old Macnaghten concert series was formed in the 1930s to champion female composers. The current master of the king’s music is a distinguished female composer, Judith Weir. A notable champion of new music in general is Odaline de la Martinez.
Meirion Bowen
London
• As a member of the Fourth Choir, I agree that female composers should be championed. To that end, our choir is presenting a programme of works by female and non-binary composers on 4 November at the Barbican Centre in London. The concert celebrates the life and legacy of Ethel Smyth.
Dr Jeremy Oliver
London
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