I was wondering why there have been so many women composers over men in this category so looking on the internet I found out why. Apparently it’s a policy to have equal female composers in modern music (whatever point that is assessed from). Thankfully Gavin Higgins wasn’t a casualty of this as his piece is still the best so far.
Festivals have been trying – in some cases, not remotely hard or quickly enough – to improve the balance from being hitherto male-dominated. i assume, and certainly hope, that the Proms is doing this too. It’s something i wrote at length about a few years back (on Sounds Like Now), and they do seem to be finally improving, in this area at least (though not in others). This year’s premières are a roughly 50/50 split women to men.
In what sense could Gavin Higgins’ piece have been a “casualty” of this?!
Well, Higgins has been featured at the Proms before, so even if he wasn’t chosen this year, he’s hardly missing out. It’s a relief that contemporary music is (admittedly, very slowly) finally getting itself sorted, but there’s still a lot to do.
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I was wondering why there have been so many women composers over men in this category so looking on the internet I found out why. Apparently it’s a policy to have equal female composers in modern music (whatever point that is assessed from). Thankfully Gavin Higgins wasn’t a casualty of this as his piece is still the best so far.
Festivals have been trying – in some cases, not remotely hard or quickly enough – to improve the balance from being hitherto male-dominated. i assume, and certainly hope, that the Proms is doing this too. It’s something i wrote at length about a few years back (on Sounds Like Now), and they do seem to be finally improving, in this area at least (though not in others). This year’s premières are a roughly 50/50 split women to men.
In what sense could Gavin Higgins’ piece have been a “casualty” of this?!
If he hadn’t been picked because he was male.
There’s gender inequalities in other areas, in many areas of fiction I expect there’s more women published than men now.
Well, Higgins has been featured at the Proms before, so even if he wasn’t chosen this year, he’s hardly missing out. It’s a relief that contemporary music is (admittedly, very slowly) finally getting itself sorted, but there’s still a lot to do.