About us

The Swedish Association of Women Composers (Kvinnlig Anhopning av Svenska Tonsättare – KVAST) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to raise awareness for women composers and promote the performance of their music.
What’s a kvast, you may ask? In Swedish, the word kvast means “broom.”

About KVAST

The Repertoire Bank

At over 3,000 works (and counting), our database of music by women composers is among the largest in the world! Browse or search the records and hear samples of a wide range of music: symphonic and chamber, electronic and live electronic, choral and operatic. Find compositions by women based on genre, difficulty level, instrumentation, title or duration.

To The Repertoire Bank

Knowledge and Inspiration

Listen, look, read and learn more!
Here you can find selection of women composers with short bio and also a statistics report from Sweden 2016-2019.
Furthermore there are links to lists on Spotify and Youtube, a collection of Links and Tips and link to theory examples.

Knowledge and Inspiration

International Activities and Outreach

Gender equality on the concert stage – for democracy and artistic excellence

Together with organizations in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, we are developing a database of works by women and gender minoritized composers in the genre of Western Art Music from the Nordic countries. Read more about this and about KVAST’s international outlook so far: In earlier years, our main international partner was the Italian-based Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica. In 2016–2017, we established contacts with Plurielles 34, the French society for women composers. In 2018, we marked our ten-year anniversary and embarked on a period of more intensive international networking, projects and collaborations that reached a peak in 2019.

Read more

Contact

KVAST - Kvinnlig Anhopning av Svenska Tonsättare

kvast@kvast.org
Contact us

Association

Knowledge