Why in Job’s name should it be important how many women are commissioned to write new works? Even more, why should there be any attempt to inflate that number for non-musical reasons? Who are the women – of equal stature and accomlishment (or lack thereof) to the men so commissioned – who have been omitted? Should this socially engineered equality extend to solists, orchestral desks, and so on (presumably reversing the widespread female dominance of orchestral strings)? Should there be more black and other ethnic minority composers/solists/orchestral desks, before and beyond assessments of musical skill and accomplishment? Gay men — presumably there are far too many of them, but should there be more gay women, more transsexuals?
You’re clearly unaware of the large and increasing number of extremely talented women composers who inexplicably aren’t receiving the opportunities in bigger (and often smaller) musical festivals due to the short-sightedness and narrow vision that so many of their (usually male) directors have. How can “stature” and/or “accomplishment” – to use your terms, however one defines them – be equal if women composers aren’t given equal opportunities in the first place?
As for the rest, yes to that too: i’d welcome seeing many more ethnic minority and LGBTQ British composers being showcased at major UK music festivals. It’s unfortunate bordering on idiotic if you believe this is all to do with “social engineering” and nothing to do with talent. You’re 100% wrong.
Steven
7 years ago
I would be interested, as somewhat of an outsider, if you could give a few examples of where talented female composers have been sidelined because of their gender?
Thanks for your comment Steven. I’m not making claims about any individual composers, but rather commenting on the very obvious and inexcusable discrepancy in gender representation overall.
Take a look back through the 9½ years of writing on this blog, and you’ll find numerous extremely talented women composers that i’ve sought to promote and champion. But if lists are what you find convincing, among British composers i’d like to see Rebecca Saunders, Naomi Pinnock, Laura Bowler and Jennifer Walshe featured at the Proms, and beyond the UK, Liza Lim, Chaya Czernowin, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir, Galina Grigorjeva, Clara Iannotta, Helena Tulve, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Claudia Molitor, Maja Ratkje and Liisa Hirsch. All eminently worthy of the opportunity – among many, many others.
As i wrote in the Sounds Like Now essay, Rebecca Saunders would have been perfect for this year’s Proms as she’s both one of the UK’s finest composers and it’s her 50th birthday year. Considering how much the Proms loves to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, the fact she’ll be included only in a small chamber piece that won’t even be played in the Albert Hall (while John Adams’ 70th is celebrated throughout the season), is a very sad state of affairs. Maybe by the time she’s 60 some attitudes and awareness of what’s really going on in contemporary music might have evolved and improved.
But, without evidence, and with the growing numbers of celebrated female composers, how is it possible to conclude that they are neglected because of their sex? One could, I’m sure, find many worthy male composers who don’t get enough attention. I’d need something less feeble than unevidenced ‘creative myopia’ to believe there’s a systemic problem.
Do you believe the weight of emphasis on male contemporary composers at the Proms is purely an accident or coincidence? You don’t feel it strongly suggests a lack of interest/awareness in what women composers are doing? Doesn’t this count as evidence?
The bottom line is that women remain under-represented at the Proms (and many other festivals). We can argue about causes, but that fact is unquestionable.
Barry
7 years ago
Okay, how about ensuring a respresenation of composers who didn’t go to a specialist music school/ public school/come from an affluent background? A disproportionate number of successful UK composers of the younger generation fall into these three.
As with the women composers issue I’d argue that it would be ridiculous to get the quota right. Far better to tackle the underlying reasons on why the above is the case. In the case of privelidged backgrounds, this goes back to government Education policies from the early 80s. Get that right, and you’ll start to redress the balance.
Thanks for the comment Barry, but I think you’re missing the point: it’s an easy, simple thing to include more women composers when designing concert programmes – let me say that again, an easy, simple thing. If you’re hoping for more advanced “underlying reasons” than creative myopia then i suspect you’ll be disappointed.
Regarding your first point, public schools is one thing, but what’s wrong with specialist music schools? They’re by no means the only place to learn composition, of course, but they’re hardly a poor choice for a composer to take. And as for affluence, do you propose to means-test composers prior to commissioning them?
Forgive me:I wasn’t particularly clear, but I said it would be ridiculous attempt to get the quota right, so means tests prior to commissioning composers would be absurd, and on par with commissioning composers on the basis of gender. I was drawing a parallel between the two things.
Keep gender, or whatever else out of it. Go for merit, and vigorously attack the route cause of why there are less male dancers, female composers, financially diadvantaged etc.You’ll end up with a more even balance in the end.
ps.Specialist music schools are fine, but they (unlike the German Hochschule system) are fee paying.
Thanks for this Barry. Ultimately, i agree about a composer’s merit being the key consideration, but until there’s some balance between the sexes, when festivals offer a skew-whiff representation they need to be challenged about it.
Specialist music schools: i don’t know from which country you’re writing, but in England at least all higher education institutions are fee paying!
Steven
7 years ago
No, I don’t feel that. I feel that there are simply more male composers than female composers. But what does it matter what I or you ‘feel’, anyway? The question is whether it’s true. If it’s not, we are arbitrarily preferencing some female composers on the basis of their sex.
Yes — and I don’t mean to go round in circles — but you would surely only have a problem with under-representation if it were because of gender preference ? If it’s simply that fewer women, for whatever benign reason, go on to become composers, then there’s really no issue.
So you’re saying that if there are fewer women composers (and how we’d count that i’m not sure), then you’re happy for them to be correspondingly less present in the concert hall?
In Steven’s defence, and the spirit of evenhandedness, if, say, the composers in a hypothetical Group A (who all happen to be female) have written 1 million works, and those in hypothetical Group B (who all happen to be male) have written 4 million works, then, provided that those figures truly represent all the works that they’ve ever wanted to write, been encouraged to write, etc., a 20/80 split doesn’t seem unreasonable on its face. However, that said, until it can be proved (and, like you say, how would one even begin to go about proving it?) that the 1 million are just as much in the public eye as the 4 million, then such representation can’t possibly be shown to be genuinely proportional. Like I said, conjecture, not evidence.
Precisely. It’s a way of trying to deflect and distract away from the central inequality we’re really talking about and which is patently obvious for anyone caring to look. i simply cannot get my head around the desire to engage in this kind of senseless (un-)thinking, it’s unfair, unkind and just stupid.
Barry
7 years ago
Specialist, as in Purcell School, YMS etc. These are pre-Conservatoire and fee paying. To be fair, scholarships are available in some instances.
I adjudicated a composition competition once, and gave the first prize to a composer who *happened to be* female. Had I not done so on the basis of gender it would have been despicable.
of course, confidence is sometimes an issue with composers, but this is not necessarily exclusive to female.
All places at the Purcell School, other major specialist music schools, and junior departments, are means tested, and supported by the government’s Music and Dance Scheme, meaning very few students actually pay the full fee, with many attending free of charge. There are no merit based scholarships ‘in some circumstances’ as you suggest.
I have always wondered what gives some men the audacity to state factual errors so confidently, especially in arguments against women and their oppression.
Anyway, in my humble opinion some of the most exciting composers alive, e.g. Tandy Davies, Chaya Czernowin, Unsuk Chin, Rebecca Saunders, Anna Meredith etc etc were woefully neglected in the Proms this year, especially considering the lack of musical diversity in the new music this year..
For a more cogent argument than mine, or anything else on here regarding this area please see “Inspiring Women in Music : Zoe Martlew” available on BBCRadio3 iplayer. It makes for a bracing 15minutes listen.
Gill Graham, of Music Sales is also very level headed here.
Chris L
7 years ago
Charlie Been, Ugolino the magnificient and Steven, when asked for evidence (stats, names, etc.) to back up his position, Simon provided it, but I’ve yet to see anything beyond conjecture from you in your efforts to cast reasonable doubt on it. The Devil seriously needs to consider hiring some different advocates, because it appears that none of you can cross-examine for toffee.
I also have yet to see any female commentators rushing to back you up, and a quick glance across at the pop music sphere is all that is required to demonstrate why: there, female composers (because that, in the broad sense, is what songwriters are) share much more proportionate billing with their male counterparts, and, to continue the analogy, the notion that this results from some kind of positive discrimination would be summarily laughed out of court.
Why, then, is it OK to posit such an argument when it comes to “serious” composition? Particularly when those voicing it seemingly have nothing to offer on this post’s principal subject-matter, i.e. the appreciation of Weir’s new piece?
Thanks very much for this, Chris – particularly for noticing that no-one in this discussion has had anything at all to say about the Weir piece, which was, after all, the entire point of this article. It’s extremely revealing about what gets some people most quickly exercised, isn’t it? And believe me when i say there were quite a few more potential comments that i simply had to delete due to their aggressively unpleasant tone, a couple of which went way beyond mere misogynism into homophobia and even borderline misanthropy. We may be living in the age of the troll, but their vapid voices won’t ever get a chance to speak here.
this post’s principal subject-matter, i.e. the appreciation of Weir’s new piece
To wit: on first listening, its treatment of its source material was more nuanced and equivocal than I was expecting after reading your description, and I enjoyed the quirkiness of some of the scoring (I’d like to hear more of that soprano-sax-plus-organ texture!), but I must confess that I didn’t exactly find it gripping, and I agree with you that one is unlikely to glean any more insight into that material from a 10th or even 100th listening.
Regarding the quirky scoring, perhaps i undersold that in my article, as i also found it to be one of the most engaging aspects of the piece. It occurred to me how right that sort of small-scale instrumental environment was to the tale of Job which, for the most part, is all pretty intimate and conversational. But then, pace RVW, not all composers would agree with that…!
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Why in Job’s name should it be important how many women are commissioned to write new works? Even more, why should there be any attempt to inflate that number for non-musical reasons? Who are the women – of equal stature and accomlishment (or lack thereof) to the men so commissioned – who have been omitted? Should this socially engineered equality extend to solists, orchestral desks, and so on (presumably reversing the widespread female dominance of orchestral strings)? Should there be more black and other ethnic minority composers/solists/orchestral desks, before and beyond assessments of musical skill and accomplishment? Gay men — presumably there are far too many of them, but should there be more gay women, more transsexuals?
You’re clearly unaware of the large and increasing number of extremely talented women composers who inexplicably aren’t receiving the opportunities in bigger (and often smaller) musical festivals due to the short-sightedness and narrow vision that so many of their (usually male) directors have. How can “stature” and/or “accomplishment” – to use your terms, however one defines them – be equal if women composers aren’t given equal opportunities in the first place?
As for the rest, yes to that too: i’d welcome seeing many more ethnic minority and LGBTQ British composers being showcased at major UK music festivals. It’s unfortunate bordering on idiotic if you believe this is all to do with “social engineering” and nothing to do with talent. You’re 100% wrong.
I would be interested, as somewhat of an outsider, if you could give a few examples of where talented female composers have been sidelined because of their gender?
Thanks for your comment Steven. I’m not making claims about any individual composers, but rather commenting on the very obvious and inexcusable discrepancy in gender representation overall.
If you’re unable to name “extremely talented women composers”, how do you back up your argument, if not with general assumptions ?
Take a look back through the 9½ years of writing on this blog, and you’ll find numerous extremely talented women composers that i’ve sought to promote and champion. But if lists are what you find convincing, among British composers i’d like to see Rebecca Saunders, Naomi Pinnock, Laura Bowler and Jennifer Walshe featured at the Proms, and beyond the UK, Liza Lim, Chaya Czernowin, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir, Galina Grigorjeva, Clara Iannotta, Helena Tulve, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Claudia Molitor, Maja Ratkje and Liisa Hirsch. All eminently worthy of the opportunity – among many, many others.
As i wrote in the Sounds Like Now essay, Rebecca Saunders would have been perfect for this year’s Proms as she’s both one of the UK’s finest composers and it’s her 50th birthday year. Considering how much the Proms loves to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, the fact she’ll be included only in a small chamber piece that won’t even be played in the Albert Hall (while John Adams’ 70th is celebrated throughout the season), is a very sad state of affairs. Maybe by the time she’s 60 some attitudes and awareness of what’s really going on in contemporary music might have evolved and improved.
But, without evidence, and with the growing numbers of celebrated female composers, how is it possible to conclude that they are neglected because of their sex? One could, I’m sure, find many worthy male composers who don’t get enough attention. I’d need something less feeble than unevidenced ‘creative myopia’ to believe there’s a systemic problem.
Do you believe the weight of emphasis on male contemporary composers at the Proms is purely an accident or coincidence? You don’t feel it strongly suggests a lack of interest/awareness in what women composers are doing? Doesn’t this count as evidence?
The bottom line is that women remain under-represented at the Proms (and many other festivals). We can argue about causes, but that fact is unquestionable.
Okay, how about ensuring a respresenation of composers who didn’t go to a specialist music school/ public school/come from an affluent background? A disproportionate number of successful UK composers of the younger generation fall into these three.
As with the women composers issue I’d argue that it would be ridiculous to get the quota right. Far better to tackle the underlying reasons on why the above is the case. In the case of privelidged backgrounds, this goes back to government Education policies from the early 80s. Get that right, and you’ll start to redress the balance.
Thanks for the comment Barry, but I think you’re missing the point: it’s an easy, simple thing to include more women composers when designing concert programmes – let me say that again, an easy, simple thing. If you’re hoping for more advanced “underlying reasons” than creative myopia then i suspect you’ll be disappointed.
Regarding your first point, public schools is one thing, but what’s wrong with specialist music schools? They’re by no means the only place to learn composition, of course, but they’re hardly a poor choice for a composer to take. And as for affluence, do you propose to means-test composers prior to commissioning them?
Forgive me:I wasn’t particularly clear, but I said it would be ridiculous attempt to get the quota right, so means tests prior to commissioning composers would be absurd, and on par with commissioning composers on the basis of gender. I was drawing a parallel between the two things.
Keep gender, or whatever else out of it. Go for merit, and vigorously attack the route cause of why there are less male dancers, female composers, financially diadvantaged etc.You’ll end up with a more even balance in the end.
ps.Specialist music schools are fine, but they (unlike the German Hochschule system) are fee paying.
Thanks for this Barry. Ultimately, i agree about a composer’s merit being the key consideration, but until there’s some balance between the sexes, when festivals offer a skew-whiff representation they need to be challenged about it.
Specialist music schools: i don’t know from which country you’re writing, but in England at least all higher education institutions are fee paying!
No, I don’t feel that. I feel that there are simply more male composers than female composers. But what does it matter what I or you ‘feel’, anyway? The question is whether it’s true. If it’s not, we are arbitrarily preferencing some female composers on the basis of their sex.
Actually, my point in this article was simple about under-representation, rather than the causes thereto.
Yes — and I don’t mean to go round in circles — but you would surely only have a problem with under-representation if it were because of gender preference ? If it’s simply that fewer women, for whatever benign reason, go on to become composers, then there’s really no issue.
So you’re saying that if there are fewer women composers (and how we’d count that i’m not sure), then you’re happy for them to be correspondingly less present in the concert hall?
In Steven’s defence, and the spirit of evenhandedness, if, say, the composers in a hypothetical Group A (who all happen to be female) have written 1 million works, and those in hypothetical Group B (who all happen to be male) have written 4 million works, then, provided that those figures truly represent all the works that they’ve ever wanted to write, been encouraged to write, etc., a 20/80 split doesn’t seem unreasonable on its face. However, that said, until it can be proved (and, like you say, how would one even begin to go about proving it?) that the 1 million are just as much in the public eye as the 4 million, then such representation can’t possibly be shown to be genuinely proportional. Like I said, conjecture, not evidence.
Precisely. It’s a way of trying to deflect and distract away from the central inequality we’re really talking about and which is patently obvious for anyone caring to look. i simply cannot get my head around the desire to engage in this kind of senseless (un-)thinking, it’s unfair, unkind and just stupid.
Specialist, as in Purcell School, YMS etc. These are pre-Conservatoire and fee paying. To be fair, scholarships are available in some instances.
I adjudicated a composition competition once, and gave the first prize to a composer who *happened to be* female. Had I not done so on the basis of gender it would have been despicable.
of course, confidence is sometimes an issue with composers, but this is not necessarily exclusive to female.
All places at the Purcell School, other major specialist music schools, and junior departments, are means tested, and supported by the government’s Music and Dance Scheme, meaning very few students actually pay the full fee, with many attending free of charge. There are no merit based scholarships ‘in some circumstances’ as you suggest.
I have always wondered what gives some men the audacity to state factual errors so confidently, especially in arguments against women and their oppression.
Anyway, in my humble opinion some of the most exciting composers alive, e.g. Tandy Davies, Chaya Czernowin, Unsuk Chin, Rebecca Saunders, Anna Meredith etc etc were woefully neglected in the Proms this year, especially considering the lack of musical diversity in the new music this year..
For a more cogent argument than mine, or anything else on here regarding this area please see “Inspiring Women in Music : Zoe Martlew” available on BBCRadio3 iplayer. It makes for a bracing 15minutes listen.
Gill Graham, of Music Sales is also very level headed here.
Charlie Been, Ugolino the magnificient and Steven, when asked for evidence (stats, names, etc.) to back up his position, Simon provided it, but I’ve yet to see anything beyond conjecture from you in your efforts to cast reasonable doubt on it. The Devil seriously needs to consider hiring some different advocates, because it appears that none of you can cross-examine for toffee.
I also have yet to see any female commentators rushing to back you up, and a quick glance across at the pop music sphere is all that is required to demonstrate why: there, female composers (because that, in the broad sense, is what songwriters are) share much more proportionate billing with their male counterparts, and, to continue the analogy, the notion that this results from some kind of positive discrimination would be summarily laughed out of court.
Why, then, is it OK to posit such an argument when it comes to “serious” composition? Particularly when those voicing it seemingly have nothing to offer on this post’s principal subject-matter, i.e. the appreciation of Weir’s new piece?
Thanks very much for this, Chris – particularly for noticing that no-one in this discussion has had anything at all to say about the Weir piece, which was, after all, the entire point of this article. It’s extremely revealing about what gets some people most quickly exercised, isn’t it? And believe me when i say there were quite a few more potential comments that i simply had to delete due to their aggressively unpleasant tone, a couple of which went way beyond mere misogynism into homophobia and even borderline misanthropy. We may be living in the age of the troll, but their vapid voices won’t ever get a chance to speak here.
To wit: on first listening, its treatment of its source material was more nuanced and equivocal than I was expecting after reading your description, and I enjoyed the quirkiness of some of the scoring (I’d like to hear more of that soprano-sax-plus-organ texture!), but I must confess that I didn’t exactly find it gripping, and I agree with you that one is unlikely to glean any more insight into that material from a 10th or even 100th listening.
Regarding the quirky scoring, perhaps i undersold that in my article, as i also found it to be one of the most engaging aspects of the piece. It occurred to me how right that sort of small-scale instrumental environment was to the tale of Job which, for the most part, is all pretty intimate and conversational. But then, pace RVW, not all composers would agree with that…!