The missing half of music history | Gabriella Di Laccio

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Gabriella DiLaccio argues that music history and modern AI both reflect a severe gendered blind spot: women composers have been systematically erased or overlooked. After discovering an encyclopedia of 6,000 women composers, she built a foundation uncovering 18,000+ names and urges recording and preserving missing voices so future music systems, classrooms, and platforms reflect humanity more fully.

Main Topics: Discovery of erased women composers (Priority: 5/5): DiLaccio recounts finding an encyclopedia of 6,000 women composers and realizing how few she could name, prompting her to investigate the scale of women’s historical exclusion from music. Building a public database and foundation (Priority: 5/5): She explains how a simple online list of women composers grew into a foundation uncovering more than 18,000 women composers, driven by global contributions from composers and supporters. The gender imbalance in music canon (Priority: 5/5): The talk highlights how the majority of music heard across genres has been written by men, demonstrating how cultural memory has privileged male voices and hidden women’s contributions. AI trained on biased musical history (Priority: 5/5): DiLaccio warns that AI music models inherit the same incomplete archive, learning from a dataset that excludes much of women’s creativity and could amplify historical erasure. Ethics of AI-generated music (Priority: 4/5): She argues that musicians—not machines—should create music, and that using artists’ work without consent or fair compensation is unjust. Preserving and recording missing voices (Priority: 5/5): Her proposed solution is to record overlooked historical and contemporary women composers so their work becomes searchable, teachable, and included in future systems. Memory, survival, and cultural legacy (Priority: 4/5): Through the story of Ilse Weber, DiLaccio shows how fragile cultural survival can be and why preserving manuscripts and recordings matters for future remembrance.

Key Arguments: The absence of women composers from mainstream musical memory is not accidental; it reflects long-term structural bias in what gets recorded, taught, and performed. A single discovery can expose a much larger historical gap: finding one encyclopedia led to the realization that thousands of women composers had been omitted from common knowledge. Publicly documenting missing composers can change what is searchable, teachable, and programmable into future music systems. AI cannot learn beyond the data it is given, so biased archives will produce biased musical outputs and reinforce existing inequities. Recording and distributing overlooked music is a practical way to counter historical erasure and prevent the silence from becoming permanent. Technology should not replace human musical creativity, and any use of artists’ work in AI systems should involve consent and fair remuneration.

Data Points: Women composers in encyclopedia: 6,000 - The encyclopedia DiLaccio found in London listed women composers across music history. Women composers now uncovered by her foundation: Over 18,000 - Her list evolved into a foundation that has identified thousands more women composers. Composers DiLaccio could name initially: 5 - She says she could name only five women composers before her research. Share of music written by men: Nearly 90% - She cites research showing the music commonly heard across genres is overwhelmingly male-written. AI-generated tracks added daily on one platform: More than 50,000 - Used to illustrate how much AI-generated music is entering the ecosystem each day. Age of song by Contessa de Dia: Almost 900 years old - Introduced as an example of a rare surviving melody by a woman from medieval southern France. Works by Mariana Martinez: More than 70 compositions - Example of an overlooked 18th-century Austrian composer whose works were performed by Mozart. Works by Florence Price: More than 300 works - Example of a major Black woman composer and the first African American woman with a symphony performed by a major orchestra.

Pivotal Quotes: "Who decides which voices survive?" — Gabriella DiLaccio: Central question framing the talk and its focus on cultural memory and inclusion. "But right now, that data is missing half of humanity's creativity." — Gabriella DiLaccio: Her warning about the biased training data used by AI music systems. "Let's teach it to remember the sounds of all of us." — Gabriella DiLaccio: Closing call to preserve and record overlooked musical voices for the future.

Implications: The talk urges listeners, educators, platforms, and AI companies to preserve overlooked composers now. If not, biased archives will shape future music culture, education, and machine-generated creativity, making historical erasure harder to reverse.