Anna Beer, the author of biographies of some very familiar figures (think Milton, Raleigh and Shakespeare), is best-known for her feisty, feminist accounts of less-well-known female creatives, including her most influential book, Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music (2016). In Sounds, Anna explored the life and work of eight superb composers, including Fanny Hensel. Sounds has led to creative collaborations across the musical world, on radio and TV, on film and the concert platform, and now the first Henselfest.

Ten years on from Sounds, Anna is again exploring the position of women in the music industry, combining her trademark historical analysis with interviews with contemporary practitioners. Composer: the changing face of music will be published in 2027.

Anna lives and works in Oxford, where she’s a Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College. The city and university provide the settings for her murder mysteries: Death of an Englishman and An Inkling of Death.