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Welcome to the Bonfils-Stanton Post-1945 Women Composers Index, an open-source searchable index created for the purpose of increasing the visibility, access, and serendipitous discovery of chamber works written after 1945 by women composers. Currently the index includes all post-1945 instrumental chamber works written by women composers housed in the Bonfils-Stanton Music Library. The index is being expanded to include vocal chamber works, and will ultimately be expanded to include works in collections other than the Bonfils-Stanton Music Library. If you would like to suggest additions to the index, please contact us.

How to use the index

The index was created primarily to facilitate searches by instrumentation, but it can also be used to find repertoire by title or composer name. Click on the “Search by…” tab above to begin your search. If you wish to search for works with guitar, for example, first click on the “Instrumentation” search category.

 

This will take you the the Instrumentation Index. Next, type guitar in the search field. Results will appear as you type.

Search Tips

  • Start broad
    For instance, if you are interested in works with flute and cello, start by searching either flute or cello to maximize your search results. In general, using a single instrument in your search will yield better results.
  • Use commas
    If you choose to search for combinations of instruments, separate them with commas. For example, a search for flute guitar or flute and guitar will not return any results, but a search for flute, guitar will yield three results.
  • Try a variety of orderings and search terms
    If a search for multiple instruments does not yield any results, try a different ordering (e.g., harp, cello instead of cello, harp). Similarly, while a search for percussion will yield six results, a search for drum will bring up three more results.

How do I find the sheet music?

Once you’ve found a work that interests you, copy-and-paste the work title and composer name into the library catalog search field at https://library.du.edu (or the library catalog of the institution with which you are affiliated) to locate the sheet music.

 

To search libraries worldwide, copy-and-paste the work title and composer’s name into the search field in worldcat.org.

You can then narrow your search results to score to view only the most relevant results.