Queen looks likely to choose first ever woman in a role that has been filled by men for 400 years.

The new Master of the Queen’s Music is set to be announced next month, and if the rumours are to be believed, it is likely to be a woman. All odds are on Dame Judith Weir, who is tipped to succeed Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in the role.

Weir, aged 60, trained with Sir John Tavener and graduated from King’s College, Cambridge in 1976. In 2007, she was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music. Weir’s music commonly draws upon medieval history and traditional stories of her family’s homeland, Scotland. She is best known for her operas, including The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert, as well as a catalogue of orchestral and chamber works.

“The name will be announced next month,” an anonymous source at the Palace told the UK’s ever-gossipy Daily Mail. “The word is that it will be the first Mistress Of The Queen’s Music.”

Queen Elizabeth II has been known to break with tradition, in 2009 appointing Carol Ann Duffy as the first female Poet Laureate. Part of that role includes composing poems for significant royal occasions, but curiously,...