Jane M. Bowers

Jane M. Bowers
Born(1936-09-17)September 17, 1936
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
DiedJune 28, 2022(2022-06-28) (aged 85)
Glendale, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Alma materWellesley College
University of California, Berkeley
Royal Conservatory of The Hague
OccupationsFlautist, musicologist and feminist
Employer(s)Oakland Symphony
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Eastman School of Music
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Organization(s)Early Music Now
International Alliance for Women in Music
American Musicological Society
Notable workWomen Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 (1986)

Jane Meredith Bowers (September 17, 1936 – June 28, 2022) was an American flautist, musicologist, educator and feminist. She is most known for editing Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 (1986) and for her contributions to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Early life and education

Bowers was born on September 17, 1936, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.[1][2] As a child, Bowers began learning piano aged 4 and played the piano and flute during her elementary, middle school, and high school education.[3]

Bowers studied Bachelor of Music at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts (1958), a Master of Music History at the University of California, Berkeley (1962), and a Doctor of Philosophy in Music History at the University of California, Berkeley (1971).[2] She studied Baroque Flute with Dutch flautist and conductor Frans Brüggen at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands (1965 to 1966)[3] and was mentored by Austrian-American feminist historian Gerda Lerner.[4]

Career

From 1962 to 1965, Bowers was the assistant principal flutist with the Oakland Symphony in Oakland, California.[2][4]

Bowers worked as a flute instructor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1968 to 1972 and as an assistant professor of music history and musicology at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, from 1972 to 1975. In 1981, she began teaching at as a tenured associate professor of music at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.[3] Among her teaching modules was "Women Musicians and Composers in Western Europe and the United States between 1100 and the Present," one of the first course on the topic offered at an American university.[5][6] In 1989, she gave a talk on "Feminist Scholarship and the Field of Musicology" at the College Music Symposium.[7]

Bowers was the author of The French Flute School from 1700 to 1760 (1981),[8] based on her PhD thesis.[9] She translated French composer François Devienne’s flute treatise from the original French text in 1999.[3][10][11]

Bowers researched European women composers with the benefit of a post-doctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Women.[4] This led to Bowers' and Judith Tick's editorship of Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 (1986),[12][13][14][15] a "pathbreaking anthology of authoritative essays on historical women musicians."[4] As a contributor of articles about flautists, composers, and instrument makers for the The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Bowers suggested that Jean Hotteterre was responsible for new method of construction of the oboe.[16]

Bowers researched the life of African-American blues singer Estelle Yancey and her husband Jimmy Yancey and wrote articles about them for the journal Black Music Research.[4] She reflected on writing a biography of a black woman as a white writer in a chapter of the book Music and Gender (2000), edited by Pirkko Moisala and Beverley Diamond.[17]

With director Thallis Hoyt Drake, Bowers was a founding board member in 1986 of Early Music Now in Milwaukee.[4] Bowers was a member of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) and was the founding editor of IAWM's scholarly journal Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture.[4] She was also a member of the American Musicological Society.[18]

Personal life and death

Bowers identified as a lesbian. She came out at her 70th birthday party.[19]

Bowers died of natural causes on June 28, 2022, at Silverado North Shore Memory Care Community in Glendale, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, aged 85.[2][4]

References

  1. ↑ International Who's who in Music and Musicians' Directory. Melrose Press. 1992. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-948875-11-3.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Jane Meredith Bowers". World Musician Obituaries. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Eggers, Bonnie. "LibGuides: Flute Materials in the Riemenschneider Bach Institute: Modern Editions". libguides.bw.edu. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Keathley, Elizabeth L. (2023). "IN MEMORIAM. Pioneering Feminist Musicologist Jane M. Bowers (1936–2022)" (PDF). Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. 29 (1). Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  5. ↑ Women's Studies Newsletter. Feminist Press's Clearinghouse on Women's Studies. 1972. p. 11.
  6. ↑ Bowers, Jane (July 1, 1977). "Teaching about the History of Women in Western Music". Women's Studies Quarterly. The Feminist Press at the City University of New York (CUNY). Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  7. ↑ Drakich, Janice; Kovarik, Edward George; Lumpkin, Ramona (1995). With a Song in Her Heart: A Celebration of Canadian Women Composers : Proceedings of the Conference Held at the University of Windsor, March 11-12, 1994. Humanities Research Group, University of Windsor. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-9697776-2-5.
  8. ↑ Tromlitz, Johann George (October 3, 1991). The Virtuoso Flute-Player. Cambridge University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-521-39977-7.
  9. ↑ Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology. American Musicological Society. 1977. p. 140.
  10. ↑ Bowers, Jane (May 20, 2019). Boehm, Thomas (ed.). Francois Devienne's Nouvelle Methode Theorique et Pratique Pour la Flute. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780429422942. ISBN 978-0-429-42294-2. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  11. ↑ Sadie, Julie Anne (1980). The Bass Viol in French Baroque Chamber Music. UMI Research Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-8357-1116-6.
  12. ↑ Koskoff, Ellen (1988). "Review of Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950". Ethnomusicology. 32 (3). University of Illinois Press: 474–478. doi:10.2307/851956. ISSN 0014-1836. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  13. ↑ Wood, Elizabeth (1988). "Review of Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950". Signs. 13 (2). The University of Chicago Press: 354–357. ISSN 0097-9740. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  14. ↑ Carter, Tim (1988). "Review of Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950". Music & Letters. 69 (1). Oxford University Press: 61–64. ISSN 0027-4224. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  15. ↑ Gottlieb, Jane (1990). "Review of Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950". Notes. 47 (1). Music Library Association: 56–59. doi:10.2307/940538. ISSN 0027-4380. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  16. ↑ Peebles, William Louis (1994). The Evolution of Bassoon Fingering Systems: An Historical and Practical Survey. Michigan State University. School of Music. p. 71.
  17. ↑ Bowers, Jane (2000). "Writing the Biography of a Black Woman Blues Singer". In Moisala, Pirkko; Diamond, Beverley (eds.). Music and Gender. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 145.
  18. ↑ American Musicological Society Directory. American Musicological Society. 1982.
  19. ↑ Kader, Cheryl (August 15, 2007). "Oral History Interview with Jane Bowers". Oral History Interviews of the Milwaukee LGBT History Project, 2003-2007, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
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