PUBLICATIONS & RESOURCES
One of my favorite areas of research is women in American music, from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. Our knowledge of women as soloists, ensemble members, and chamber musicians on the vaudeville stage, the parade field, and the concert hall is limited. It is a challenge to uncover lost information about the world of low brass, and how this gives life to the history of American music.
For download at no charge
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- 125 Years of Listening to Ladies of Brass Handout
- Study Guide: Historic Female Trumpet Performers in the United States
- Study Guide: Historic Female Horn Performers in the United States
- Study Guide: Historic Female Trombone Performers in the United States
- Study Guide: Historic Female Tuba Euphonium Performers in the United States
- Dissertation (Hersey, 2006), “Such Unfemininine Instruments” Women Brass Musicians Before 1940
- Resources Handout: Women’s Military Bands in North America During WW2
- Handout: Using Genealogy Tools to Uncover the Lives of Women in American Music
- International Women’s Brass Conference Pioneer Information
Books
Music Education in America’s Public Normal Schools
Celebratory and Troubled Beginnings of Music Teacher Education
Danelle D. Larson (Anthology Editor), Jill M. Sullivan (Anthology Editor)
Bloomsbury Publishing (2026)
Capturing the beginning of music participation and engagement in many of the public universities that started as normal schools, this book provides a history of American music education in the 19th and 20th centuries.
American music-teacher education evolved from teacher education in public normal schools, many of which eventually became state universities. For social and religious reasons, students learned hymns, European art music, folk songs, and military music; segregated Black and Native American normal schools included Jubilee choirs and powwow music. Student- and teacher-led music ensembles were ubiquitous, mirroring music-making in American society. Eventually, normal schools educated music teachers and music supervisors. In this book, the contributing authors discuss the early history of arts education, specifically music, in the first public normal schools in America through the lenses of class, gender, and race, revealing both celebratory and troubling beginnings. Schools were built on confiscated Native lands and segregated by race, and separate spheres existed for men and women. The embodied experiences of teacher-education students would live on to influence music teaching and learning curricula not only in the K–12 schools where they taught, but also nearly two centuries of music education in the colleges and universities from which they stem.
Jill M. Sullivan
Rowman & Littlefield (2016)
Chapter 4 “An Attraction of Unusual Merit”: Women’s Bands on the Vaudeville Stage” by Joanna Ross Hersey
This collection presents a sweeping 140-year story of successful all-women’s bands in the United States and Mexico and fills many gaps in our inherited musical histories. Taken together, these essays present a powerful story of resilience, showing that in creating these musical ensembles, women also created an empowering space for their own gendered agency. It would be useful in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses on gender and music, gender studies, historical musicology and ethnomusicology. (Ellen Koskoff, University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music)
Jill M. Sullivan
Scarecrow Press (2011)
Chapter 4 “The Coast Guard SPAR Band” by Joanna Ross Hersey
Jill Sullivan’s Bands of Sisters: U.S. Women’s Military Bands during World War II is a ‘must read’ for every music educator. Sullivan chronicled an important piece of American history that is not only informative but at times personal, emotional, and revelatory. I cheered, I chuckled, and I cried as I read it. The passion, excitement, and pain of the women in these bands touched both my head and my heart. Clearly, this is a powerful story and, just as clearly, Sullivan told it masterfully. (Journal of Historical Research in Music Education)
Sheet Music
This work for unaccompanied solo tuba features the extended lower range of the instrument and can be heard on my recent solo album, Zigzags.
My new publication series of historical arrangements for brass by women and minority composers debuted this summer. My first installment is Three Medieval Songs, for solo tuba or euphonium, featuring two works by Hildegard von Bingen and one by Beatriz, Comtessa de Dia. This music can be heard on both of my solo albums, O quam mirabilis and Zigzags.
Articles
“Unrivalled and Unequalled: Gender and Brass in 19th Century America.” Romantic Brass in Context, ed. von Steiger et al. Schliengen: Edition Argus, in press, 2024.
“‘A Trained Teacher in Every Classroom’ Music and Belonging in BraveNation,” in An Early History of Music Education in Universities: The Normal School Years, Jill Sullivan, Ed. Rowan and Littlefield, Lanham, MD. 2023.
“Archive Corner,” Historic Brass Today, Vol. 3. April 2023, 10-11,2023.
“In Loving Memory of Joan Fann,” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the IWBC, 31/2, 5, 2022.
“Finding your Voice, with Kris Kwapis,” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the IWBC, 31/2, 10, 16-17, 2022.
“Leading from the Podium,” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the IWBC, 31/2, 18, 2022.
“Archive Corner,” Historic Brass Today, Vol. 2. October 2022, 10-11, 2022.
“Five Hundred Years of Low Brass: A Review of Doug Yeo’s Illustrated Dictionary of the Modern Trombone, Tuba and Euphonium Player,” Historic Brass Today, Vol. 1. 34, 2021.
“A Conversation with Augusta Read Thomas” in Brass Legacy: The Art of Brass Chamber Music, Op. 3/3, 2021.
“Helen May Butler and Cosmopolitan America, a Video Performance Review,” Historic Brass Today, Vol. 1, 7. 2021.
“Archive Corner,” Historic Brass Today, Vol. 1. 10-11, 2021.
“IWBC Awardees Honored in Arizona,” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the IWBC, 27/2, 14-15, 2019.
“Developing Leadership, Marin Alsop and the Cultivation of Growth,” Noteworthy, 25/1, 8-9, 2018.
“Expert’s Corner: The Stars and Stripes Forever Audition Excerpt,” International Tuba Euphonium Journal (ITEA), 44/1, 2016.
“An Attraction of Unusual Merit,” Women’s Bands on the Vaudeville Stage.” Chapter in A History of Women’s’ Bands in America: Performing Music and Gender in Society, edited by Jill Sullivan. Rowan & Littlefield, Landham, MD. 2015.
“Ten Tips for Tip Top Tuba Mamas: Pregnancy in a Low Brass Performance Career,” The International Tuba and Euphonium Journal, Volume 41, No. 3, Winter 2014, 35-36.
“The Athena Brass Band.” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the International Women’s Brass Conference, Summer 2014, Volume 21, No. 1, p. 9.
“Bringing History to Light: New IWBC Awards for 2014.” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the International Women’s Brass Conference, Summer 2014, Volume 21, No. 1, p. 10-11.
“East Meets West” Orchestral Program Showcases the Work of Women.” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the International Women’s Brass Conference, Winter 2013, Volume. 20, No. 2, p. 4.
“IWBC 2012: Honoring Pioneers in Brass Performance.” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the International Women’s Brass Conference, Winter 2012, Volume 18, No. 2, p. 9.
Sullivan, Jill. Bands of Sisters: U.S. Women’s Military Bands During World War II. American Wind Band Society, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, MD. 2011. This new book features a chapter which I contributed on the USCG SPAR Band of World War II.
Book Review: “New Book Release Catalogs History of Women’s Military Bands.” Noteworthy: Official Newsletter of the International Women’s Brass Conference, Winter 2011, Volume 17, No. 2, p. 10.
“A Musician as well, The Tuba and Euphonium Schulen of Robert Kietzer,” The International Tuba and Euphonium Journal, Volume 39, No. 1, Fall 2011, 69-77. Finalist, International Tuba and Euphonium Association Clifford Bevan Award for Excellence in Research, 2011.
Article Review: “Women of U.S. Coast Guard SPAR Band Remembered.” Official Newsletter of the International Women’s Brass Conference, Summer 2009, Volume 15, No. 1, p. 10.
“A History of the United States Coast Guard SPAR Band,” The Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, with Jill Sullivan, co-author. Vol. XXX, No. 2. April 2009, 118-146.
“Higher Aspirations for Low Brass,” The North Carolina Music Educator’s Journal, Volume 95, Number 2, Winter 2009, 26.
“The Entertainment Value of Novelty: Women Brass Performers on the Vaudeville Stage,” The Historic Brass Society Journal, Vol. 20. 2008, 155-173.
Thanks to Dave Werden for posting this article on his website.