Oct 2, 2026 · 50 min
Gabriella Di Laccio reopens music history’s missing chapters
The women missing from music
The episode shows how archives, performance, and institutional choices determine whose creative work survives in the canon.
- 1Gabriella Di Laccio’s Donne Foundation has documented more than 18,000 women composers overlooked by traditional music history.
- 2Recovering scores by Ilse Weber and Florence Price reveals how lost manuscripts and institutional neglect made exclusion appear natural.
- 3The episode argues that expanding representation must include women as composers, songwriters, and industry leaders, not only performers.
Don't miss
Gabriella explains how Ilse Weber’s surviving lullaby, “Wiegala,” carries both the composer’s music and the history of the Holocaust.
The brief
Classical singer and activist Gabriella Di Laccio describes discovering an encyclopedia of women composers and realizing how much music history had been left out.
Her Donne Foundation now documents more than 18,000 women composers, challenging the assumption that women disappeared from the canon because they lacked important work.
Stories of Ilse Weber and Florence Price show what recovery can restore: a surviving lullaby, rediscovered manuscripts, and a fuller account of who shaped music.
The episode distinguishes visibility from power: women may appear more often as performers, while composition, songwriting, education, and industry leadership remain disproportionately male.
Gabriella connects archival recovery to the future, warning that AI can reproduce biased datasets while live performance preserves human imperfection and intimacy.
Nadya Tolokonnikova’s account of music and resistance broadens the argument from recovering forgotten creators to defending artistic expression under repression.
Gabriella Di Laccio
Nadya Tolokonnikova
Ilse Weber
The International Encyclopedia of Women Composers
Pussy RiotListen to the full episode and explore every guest, topic, and moment on PodLume.