Skip to main content

Top Professorship Music-Specific Gender StudiesMusic-Specific Gender Studies

When will it become standard practice in music studies to (also) focus on women in music and perform their compositions? Concert life, music-related education, and research have long been male-dominated worlds. In these worlds, knowledge and judgment have ultimately shaped the narrow corpus of what is kept active in concert life and what is considered significant in research. But what else was and is there beyond that? What has been and is being overlooked? These are questions addressed by music-specific gender studies. 

The research category of gender aims to identify socially influenced historical gender roles and understand gender differences. It concerns the agents in cultural systems and the participation, co-creation, and conditions of women in such systems. 

Gender, as the culturally acquired and shaped sex, is a central socio-historical category. It has initiated sustained discussions about processes of tradition and canon formation, including in music, and has triggered a fundamental reflection and revision of seemingly self-evident images and interpretations of music history and contemporary music-related activities. 

Music-specific gender studies, which encompasses research on female and male roles as well as queer studies, broadens the horizons of music history and reveals gender-relevant aspects in musicological topics (e.g., by reinterpreting biographies from a gender perspective). It asks how gender is negotiated performatively in music, analyses musical practices, institutions, and knowledge systems with regard to gender relations, and acts as a catalyst for methodological diversity in interdisciplinary cultural studies approaches to music research. 

Music-specific gender studies is a multifaceted field of research with room for new perspectives and questions. All students are invited to participate.

Top professorship for music-specific gender research

Prof. Dr. Susanne Rode-Breymann Musikspezifische Genderforschung und Artistic Research im Rahmen des Spitzenprofessurenprogramms (SPP) / Hightech Agenda Bayern

Email susanne.rode-breymann(at)hfm-nuernberg.de

More infos

    • Cultural history, cultural practices, places of cultural practices, and mobility of female musicians in the early modern period
    • History of emotions in the early modern period (funeral music for women)
    • Composing by women
    • Music (theater) culture in fin de siècle Vienna and in the interwar years (especially Alma and Gustav Mahler, Alexander Zemlinsky, Alban Berg, and Richard Strauss)
    • Cultural transfer in the early modern period (e.g., between Europe and China) and in the early 20th century (in the transatlantic region)
    • Historiographical processes and knowledge systems in music
    • Musical creativity in the context of dystopias

    • Biographical research, memory studies, and historical contextualisation
    • Source research, and editing
    • Praxeology: analysis of the conditions under which individuals are able or unable to engage in music-related practices
    • Cultural sociology: analysis of historical horizons of meaning, cultural codes, symbolic orders, and gender orders
    • Artistic research from the perspective of “displayed,” exhibited knowledge

Research associate for music-specific gender studies

Charlotte Müller Musikwissenschaft mit Schwerpunkt musikspezifische Genderforschung

Email charlotte.mueller(at)hfm-nuernberg.de

More infos

    • Gender studies, queer theory, and intersectionality
    • Music, body, and space: the embodiment of music, the performative potential of music, physical inscriptions in musical and social spaces (19th–21st centuries)
    • Artistic subjectivity and performative transformations of musical leadership and collaboration
    • Musicking, participation, and structures of musical creation (agents, decision-makers)
    • Gender-specific training and professionalisation opportunities
    • Approaches to equity, diversity, and solidarity networks in music practice (especially conducting)

    • Performativity of gender, (music-related) spatial sociology, body praxeology, and phenomenological perspectives
    • Queer feminist theory formation as an analytical perspective
    • Analysis of social and cultural norms of music-related action: exclusions, representation, visibility, and aesthetic standards
    • Empirical social research: qualitative interviews, participant observation, qualitative content analysis

Latest news

    • SRB: War, Victory, and Peace in Opera at the Habsburg Imperial Court. Lecture as part of the lecture series “Music and Peace” at the Musicology Seminar Detmold/Paderborn, October 29, 2025
    • SRB: Cultural Action: Opera as a (Historical) Space for Women Composers. Lecture at the University of Bayreuth, September 29, 2025
    • CM: Women* Orchestra Conductors and the Embodiment of Music. Performative Subversions of a Gendered Professional Practice. Paper presentation at the Conference „Musical Practices – Social Tactics“, University of the Arts Berlin, September 25, 2025
    • SRB: Women Composers in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Access to Education. Performance Venues. Networks. Seminar organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Kassel, September 26, 2025
    • CM: Women* Orchestra Conductors and the Embodiment of Music. Performative Subversions of a Gendered Professional Practice. Paper presentation at the 5th International Conference on Women’s Work in Music 2025: Brave New Worlds, Trinity Laban London, August 31, 2025
    • SRB: “Political Music” at European Courts during the Renaissance. Lecture given as part of the student council conference for Cusanuswerk scholarship holders on the topic of “Political Music?! How Music Revolutionises,” Weimar, July 5, 2025
    • SRB: Women Composers in the Culture of Song and Poetry in Vienna around 1900: Johanna Müller-Hermann, Mathilde Kralik von Meyrswalden, and Alma Mahler. Lecture as part of the symposium "Her*Hits: Women Lied Composers. Sought After, Heard, Celebrated. Artistic-scientific symposium and song festival," Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media, June 11-13, 2025
    • SRB: Communicating and Collaborating in a Culture of the Sung Word. Lecture as part of the study day “On Edition and Reception,” Nuremberg University of Music, May 13, 2025
    • SRB: Spaces of Possibility. New Spaces for Study: Discovering Grillenberg. Lecture as part of the opening of the new location of the Nuremberg University of Music in Karl-Grillenberger-Straße, March 21, 2025
    • SRB: Alma Mahler-Werfel. Personality. Self-image. Attributions. Lecture at the opening of the exhibition “Woman in Blue. Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler” at the Museum Folkwang Essen, March 19, 2025
    • SRB: Developments in Science Policy: Starting Points and Food for Thought. Lecture as part of the HRK workshop “Artistic Research,” Berlin, January 31, 2025
    • SRB: Innovation in Music – Communication in Courtly Culture: What Could Be Said Through Monody in Opera. Lecture as part of the “Forum on Historical Musical Instruments: Vocal and Instrumental Monody,” Nuremberg University of Music in collaboration with the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, January 23, 2025

    • SRB:
    • Der ‚große Bösewicht‘ und das ‚System Musikhochschulen‘. Eine Positionierung gegen sexualisierten Machtmissbrauch, in: Genie – Gewalt – Geschlecht. Narrative und Strukturen von Machtmissbrauch in der Musik(wissenschaft), hg. von Anke Charton und Elisabeth Treydte (Jahrbuch Musik und Gender 16), Baden-Baden 2025, S. 57-64.
    • (Wahl-)Verwandtschaften. Gemeinschaftliches kulturelles Handeln, hg. von Maren Bagge, Christine Fornoff-Petrowski, Anna Ricke, Susanne Rode-Breymann, (Musik-Kultur-Gender 21), Köln 2025.
    • „An English Composer Sees America“. Benjamin Brittens transatlantische Möglichkeitsräume, in: Music Across the Ocean: Kulturelle Mobilität im transatlantischen Raum, 1800-1950, hg. von Carola Bebermeier, Clemens Kreutzfeldt und Melanie Unseld, Bielefeld 2024, S. 141-156.
    • Alma Mahler-Werfels Salon in der Villa Ast auf der Hohen Warte (1932-1938). Staatstragender Ort – intellektuell offenes Forum, in: It’s a Man’s World? Künstlerinnen in Europas Musik-Metropolen des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, hg. von Sabine Meine und Kai Hinrich Müller (Musik – Kultur – Geschichte 19), Würzburg 2023, S. 117-129.
    • Statuspassagen in Lebensläufen von Frauen in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Kulturelles Handeln | Macht | Mobil. Interdisziplinäre Studien zur gender- und musikbezogenen Mobilitätsforschung, hg. von Maren Bagge und Nicole K. Strohmann (Musik, Kultur, Gender 20), Köln 2023, S. 131-149.

Research and artistic research projects

    • „Gender & Diversity“ project series
    • Women composers from four centuries
    • Dissertation on women orchestra conductors
    • Operas composed by women

    • Her*Hits

    From June 11 to 13, 2025, 99 songs by 42 women composers were performed by song classes from the music academies of Nuremberg, Hanover, Graz, Cologne, Salzburg, and Stuttgart at the Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media, accompanied by lectures by internationally renowned song researchers. From Nuremberg, the song duos Josefina Legarra and Cosima Fischer von Mollard, Janine Odermatt and Roman Malich, and Christina Maier and Valentin Steinsiek took part, as well as the teachers Marcelo Amaral (professor of song interpretation), Knut Schoch (professor of baroque singing), and Susanne Rode-Breymann. Nuremberg was the only university from which students from an elective seminar also traveled (Arman Depperschmidt, Lucia Keil, Anna-Lena Kreher, Adelina Phiong). The trip was financed by the Mariann Steegmann Foundation.

    Part of the project was the study day conceived and organised by Prof. Knut Schoch on May 13, 2025, at the Nuremberg University of Music under the title Von Edition und Rezeption (On Edition and Reception), which focused on German Romantic women composers, their Lied compositions, and their significance then and now. 

    On June 22, the International Hugo Wolf Academy presented excerpts from the project at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts. Josefina Legarra and Cosima Fischer von Mollard from Prof. Marcelo Amaral's Lied class were invited to contribute songs by Pauline Viardot and Rita Strohl. Susanne Rode-Breymann participated in a roundtable discussion.

    • (Wahl-)Verwandtschaften

    The topic arose as a continuation of the dissertations by Maren Bagge, Christine Fornoff-Petrowski, and Anna Ricke in collaboration with Susanne Rode-Breymann: Relationships—within the family or in freely chosen communities—can open up scope for action, but also restrict it, influence ideas, and promote music-related activities.

    The contributions to the conference of the Research Center for Music and Gender from July 7-9, 2022, have now been published as volume 21 of the series “Musik-Kultur-Gender” (Music-Culture-Gender): The volume examines the significance of different forms of relationships for music-related activities from the early modern period to the late 20th century. The contributions present a panorama of music-related (elective) kinships – from artistic collaborations, couple relationships, and family structures to shared living arrangements.

Doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers

Supporting colleagues in the early stages of their careers is a particular responsibility of universities. Here, it is important to develop and refine tailor-made formats. Susanne Rode-Breymann brings a wealth of experience to this field, including the implementation of the structured doctoral programme Memory – Perception – Meaning. Musicology as a Humanities Subject together with the Universities of Göttingen, Oldenburg, and Osnabrück (2009-2012), the establishment of an international doctoral colloquium at the Music and Gender Research Center, consulting within the framework of various coaching programmes, and the establishment of junior professorships at the Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media, where she secured funding for three junior professorships in 2017 as part of the federal-state programme for the promotion of young academics (tenure-track programme) and accompanied them through interim evaluation and permanent appointment.

    • Melanie Unseld, Chair of Historical Musicology at the mdw Vienna (primary supervisor for habilitation)
    • Nina Noeske, Chair of Historical Musicology, specialising in 19th-century music, at the University of Music “Franz Liszt” Weimar (primary supervisor for habilitation)
    • Antje Tumat, Professor of Musicology at the Musicology Seminar Detmold/Paderborn at the University of Paderborn (primary supervisor for habilitation)
    • Nicole K. Strohmann, University Professor of Historical Musicology and Gender Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (primary supervisor for habilitation)
    • Sabine Meine, Professor of Musicology at the Cologne University of Music and Dance (secondary supervisor for habilitation)

    • Arne Spohr, Professor (musicology) and Director of Early Music Ensemble, College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University (primary supervisor)
    • Carolin Stahrenberg, University Professor of Musicology at Anton Bruckner Private University Linz (primary supervisor)
    • Anna Langenbruch, Professor of Cultural History of Music at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg (primary supervisor for doctoral studies, binational doctoral programme with the École des hautes études en sciences sociales)
    • Lilli Mittner, Associate Professor at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Centre for Women's and Gender Research

    • Hendrikje Mautner, Professor of Cultural Mediation / Music Sociology at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart (secondary supervision of doctoral thesis)
    • Christine Siegert, Director of the Beethoven Archive Research Center at the Beethoven House Bonn (secondary supervision of doctoral thesis)
    • Katharina Hottmann, Professor of Historical Musicology at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (secondary doctoral supervisor)
    • Florian Heesch, University Professor of Popular Music and Gender Studies at the University of Siegen (secondary doctoral supervisor, binational doctoral programme with the University of Gothenburg)

  • Primary supervision

    • Maren Bagge, Jan Bäumer, Katrin Eggers, Viola Herbst, Stephanie Hodde-Fröhlich, Julia Müller, Birgit Saak, Katharina Talkner 

    Secondary supervision

    • Fabian Bien, Christine Fornoff-Petrowski, Frédérique Renno, Anna Ricke

    • Katharina Bovermann, Hiroyo Iida-Falk, Leonie Koch, Felisa Mesuere, Charlotte Müller, Knut Schoch, Mengjie Zhang

Supported by