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EXAMINING SHIFTS IN REPERTOIRE PROGRAMMING PRACTICES: PRE- AND POST-PANDEMIC

work that fulfills both gender- and race-based diversity is gender. Figure 3 displays the percentage of works
goals. Secondly, for every minute a work increased in performed by composers of various genders during
duration, the odds it was composed by a non-White each study period.
composer decreased by 3%, suggesting that conduc- Similar to trends observed in composer race and
tors are more likely to perform shorter works by non- ethnicity, performed works skew heavily toward male
White composers. Thirdly, the odds of a work being composers, though also like composer race and ethnici-
composed by a non-White composer decreased when ty, a notable shift is seen between the two study periods:
the work was performed by a treble ensemble, tenor/ in this case, of approximately twelve percentage points
bass ensemble, or the school’s top ensemble. Additional toward female-composed rather than male-composed
7
research may be warranted to determine whether these works. Notably, the percentage of male-composed
differences in odds reflect a relative lack of availability works programmed decreased at all sixteen schools in
of non-White-composed music for treble, tenor/bass, the study.
and/or more advanced ensembles, or whether these As with composer race and ethnicity, a model was
differences in odds merely reflect discrepancies in pro- employed to determine which other variables tracked
gramming practices. in the study may correlate with composer gender. By
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, no correla- far, the greatest predictive factor for composer gender
tion was found between composer race and whether a is the voicing of the ensemble: a work performed by a
school experienced a faculty change during the study treble ensemble was more than two-and-a-half times
period. For this reason, we can conclude that changes as likely to be composed by a female composer than
in racial and ethnic representation discussed in this sec- a work performed by a mixed ensemble, and a work
tion occurred independently of any faculty changes at performed by a tenor/bass ensemble was only about
the responding schools. half as likely to be composed by a female composer
than a work performed by a mixed ensemble. Similar
Gender Representation to findings regarding composer race, both older and
Beyond composer race and ethnicity, the other ma- longer works were disproportionally male-composed,
jor aspect of composer identity examined by this study and schools’ top ensembles were found to perform less

Figure 3. Total Performed Works by Composer Gender

2017-2019

2021-2023

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Male
Female
Other/Unknown

16 CHORAL JOURNAL September 2025 Volume 66 Number 2