RESOURCES FOR WOMEN IN SACRED MUSIC

Resources for Women in Sacred Music

The Royal School of Church Music in America is committed to celebrating and promoting the work of women musicians. We invite you to explore these resources and discover the great output of these long overlooked voices in the sacred music world.

A Great Host of Composers

A Great Host of Composers is a curated database of sacred choral music and voluntaries by women for the church year, with listings for each Sunday and feast days. There are also sheets with listings of Mass Settings, Evening Canticles, Responses, and Anglican Chant by women composers. Use the interactive database spreadsheet on the website to view complete details on all recommended titles, including links to scores, recordings and composer information, and corresponding Revised Common Lectionary readings.

Multitude of Voyces

RSCM America is proud to be part of the sponsorship of this exciting new project that brings to light sacred choral works by women composers from the Renaissance to newly commissioned works, a part of the broader mission of Multitude of Voyces is to support underrepresented, vulnerable, and marginalized groups through music and words.

Multitude of Voyces is an anthology of Sacred Music by Women Composers. Volume1 (SATB), Volume 2 (upper voices), and Volume 3 (Advent to Candlemas) are now available. An inclusive hymnal is now in the planning stages.

Sarah MacDonald Choral Series

In January 2020, Selah Publishing released the first twelve anthems of the Sarah MacDonald Choral Series, a series of anthems for the church composed by women, presenting anthems and liturgical works of varied difficulty and voicings by both established and emerging women composers. These works are available as a set, individual octavos, and as PDF downloads, with a new set due to be released every six months.

An introductory video to the series by Sarah MacDonald is included below. Shop the choral series, enjoy Sarah’s Illustrated Lecture, '“Silent in the Churches,” and listen to Sarah discuss the series in this podcast.