There is a great deal of attention being paid currently to the music of many female composers  whose works previously were not given the same kind of attention of their male counterparts.  The American composer Florence Price, one of the first African American women to have her  work played by an American orchestra, left behind a treasure trove of manuscripts, letters, and  other papers which were discovered in 2009 in her abandoned summer home in St. Anne,  Illinois, more than a half century after her death in 1953, bringing her music back into the  spotlight. The find, made by property investors renovating the house, included lost works like  symphonies and concertos, which musicologists and publishers are now working to make  widely available, and some of which I am happy to say I have already performed in recital. 

By contrast, the French composer Cécile Chaminade enjoyed a great deal of celebrity during  her lifetime, performing extensively in Europe and the United States. 

As I begin to study the works of Fanny Mendelssohn, Das Jahr in particular, I believe that we  as musicians must also turn our attention to scholarship wherever we can so that we can study  and perform these neglected works as much as we can. The Lightbulb Moment for me is that  these works will not be appreciated unless we actively seek them out, celebrating them with  the same enthusiasm we reserve for some of their better-known colleagues. 

My thanks go out to Anna Shelest for all she has done to bring many of these overlooked  masterpieces by female composers to light, especially with her wonderful CDs, Donna Voce, Vols. I, II, and III (Spotify). Not only is Anna a brilliant pianist and artist, but she is a source of  great inspiration to me, and all of us who realize that is our responsibility to make certain that  audiences have a chance to appreciate works by finding them, learning them, and then  programming them as part of our concerts.