Talk and concert: Music and stories from the archive of the association Women in Music

Until last year, only a select few had access to explore the archive of the Danish Women in Music association. The archive contains not only cultural-historical treasures, but also stories about women’s active contribution to Danish music life.

Musicologist Katrine Wallevik is currently unpacking and organising the archive so that it can become part of Royal Danish Library's collections. This will make the material accessible to the public and preserved for future generations.

You can hear more about this work during the afternoon event, when Katrine Wallevik, together with Maria Claustad from Edition·S, visits The Old Reading Room and talks about the process of making the archive accessible. In 2023, Maria Claustad herself explored the archive where she encountered the composer Nanna Liebmann. She subsequently became involved in publishing the composer’s complete works for the very first time.

The afternoon’s event centres on two composers represented in the archive, Nanna Liebmann and Benna Moe, and you will have the opportunity to hear some of their music brought to life in live performances by soprano Laura Helene Hansen and pianist Louise Schrøder.

About the Women in Music archive

The archive of the Association Women in Music consists of letters, correspondence, newspaper clippings, academic works, interviews, audio recordings and sheet music. It bears witness to more than forty years of voluntary, dedicated and highly skilled archival work, as well as cultural-political initiatives centred around the Association Women in Music. The archive contains material relating to a wide range of Danish women composers, including Nanna Liebmann and Benna Moe.

The complete works of Nanna Liebmann (1849-1935) have now been published as part of the DCM (Danish Classical Music) project, a subdivision of Edition·S, dedicated to publishing music by composers who have historically received insufficient attention in music history. Nanna Liebmann grew up in a middle-class musical household in Copenhagen. At the age of eighteen, she enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where she met her husband. Following his early death, she supported herself and her son as a music teacher and music critic. She also undertook organisational roles, including serving as chair of the Women’s Building between 1898 and 1906. However, she remained critical of the women’s liberation movement and even questioned whether women were capable of composing at all. Nevertheless, she became a member of the Danish Composers’ Society in 1913. Liebmann composed Romantic piano works and songs, which are today published by Edition·S.

Benna Moe (1897-1983) began composing at the age of seven. Like Liebmann, she also came from Copenhagen’s bourgeoisie and enjoyed a long career as a composer, organist, pianist and singer. Among her works are the ballet Hybris, performed at The Royal Danish Theatre in 1930, and the organ work Alpesuiten (1929), which was printed in the United States and broadcast on American radio in 1935. Moe’s style combined Romantic organ music with popular entertainment music, and she also worked as a cinema organist at the Palladium. Her music was published both in Denmark and abroad, and she spent extended periods in Sweden, including as composer-in-residence in Mora. She spent most of her life living with her companion Karla Aagaard.

Cast

Katrine Wallevik, researcher at Royal Danish Library
Maria Claustad, sheet music publisher and project manager at DCM, Edition·S
Laura Helene Hansen, soprano
Louise Schrøder, pianist

Katrine Wallevik

Katrine Wallevik (b. 1975) holds a PhD in Musicology from the University of Copenhagen (2019). In the research project Fragile Archives, she explores archival infrastructures and examines how previously overlooked aspects of Danish musical heritage can be brought out of the archives and become a more vital part of our shared cultural memory in the future. The project is supported by the former Danish Arts Foundation Research Fund. Alongside this work, Katrine is a postdoctoral researcher on the project The Sound of Women’s Struggle – Music in and around the Danish Feminist Movement 1970–1985, based at the University of Copenhagen with support from the Augustinus Foundation.

Maria Claustad

Maria Claustad (b. 1996) holds an MA in Musicology from the University of Copenhagen (2024). Her thesis examined women composers from the late nineteenth century from the perspective of cultural memory and the women’s movement. Since 2023, she has served as project manager for the DCM project at Edition·S, which publishes works by historically overlooked women composers. Since October 2024, she has additionally worked as an editor on the project, where she has among other things published the complete works of Nanna Liebmann (1849–1935).

Laura Helene Hansen

Laura Helene Hansen is one of Denmark’s most promising young sopranos. She is currently studying classical voice in the soloist class at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and will appear in 2026 both as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with the Jutland Opera and as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer with the Welsh National Opera. She is frequently described as fearless and uncompromising and is driven by a clear ambition to secure greater recognition for women composers. In 2025, she received the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize.

Louise Schrøder

Louise Schrøder trained as a pianist specialising in accompaniment and répétiteur studies at Danish National Academy of Music, graduating in 2006 under Tove Lønskov and Marianna Shirinyan. From 2006 to 2016, she served as musical director and part of the daily management team of the touring company The Rolling Opera. As an accompanist and répétiteur, Louise has worked with organisations including the Jutland Opera, Den Ny Opera, Copenhagen Opera Festival, the Opera Academy, Polyhymnia and Opera på Grænsen.