Blogging from A to Z April Challenge: H is for Barbara Heller

This is day 8 of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge in which I attempt to blog every day (excepting Sundays) throughout the month of April. For this challenge, I am curating a collection of “classical” music pieces, which are lesser known or by lesser known composers (to me at least).Today’s composer is Barbara Heller(b. 1936). I’ve been trying, this month, to alternate between male and female composers. It’s no easy task. Wikipedia lists composers by name, and really out of each alphabetical entry, among hundreds of men, there are normally only two or three women.

““In Bewegung”

My searches however are more than rewarded when I find a female composer. Take today’s composer, Barbara Heller. In WW II, Heller’s home was bombed in 1943 and her family moved to Mannheim where she studied music and taught herself composition. Since then she has promoted female composers, organizing one of the first big festivals on women in music in 1980. Since retiring from performing in 1990, she’s been part of a group, “Bluna Bluna,” which, according to Wikipedia, creates “tape compositions, sound installations, audio-visual exhibition projects and improvisations.”

The composer’s Wikipedia page Barbara Heller