Gender and the Classical Music World

the unaccomplished professionalization of women in Italy

Abstract

The inclusion of women within the music profession is a recent and not fully realized process. This also holds true for classical music, where femininization has been more pronounced than in other music worlds. Building on secondary and primary sources on the Italian case, the paper focusses on some of the main aspects revealing the persistent – albeit steadily reduced – influence of a gendered model in shaping educational and professional paths of classical musicians, making for female musicians harder than for their male colleagues to gain legitimate access and full recognition within the world of classical music.