Gender balance at festivals

[Richard Barrett]

It is interesting that those people who are likely to get fewer gigs as a result of festivals like HCMF becoming more balanced seem to be in favour of a more equitable situation?

Well, for one thing it seems clear to me that radical artists should be showing the way rather than lining up with the Rees-Moggs of the cultural world.

[CGR]

More bloody singers !!!

Singers are the bane of the pub jam I regularly go to.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It is interesting that those people who are likely to get fewer gigs as a result of festivals like HCMF becoming more balanced seem to be in favour of a more equitable situation?

If the scheme is restricted purely to Festivals, there may well be "fewer gigs" for some men - but it doesn't have to have such implications, even for Festivals. If I want to redress the imbalance in my CD collection, I can either buy more discs by women composers: I don't need to chuck out any by men. Reward the Festivals that opt in to the scheme with extra funding so that extra gigs can be put on. (And extend the scheme so that more performances of all sorts of Musics are going on all over the country all the time.)

This is an opportunity for more Live Music events, not fewer.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

You all may be interested in Val Wilmer coming up on R3 on Sunday. I think she made the point that women have always been integral, at least to jazz. The point was the where, how and the reward and status. In her "As serious as your life", she quotes American male "avant jazz" politically aware musicians saying, "Without my woman I couldn't do this, she goes out to work so that I can stay here and concentrate on my horn and my art" (sic). Or smoke dope all day with my friends. As she once said, if I was writing about that scene now, I would do it very differently...

[Lat-Literal]

"Appears" to middle-aged men, who define for themselves what is "reasonable"? Can you name any orchestra in Britain with a 50% female personnel? It is certainly better than it was 50 - or even 30 - years ago, but do you imagine that the greater balance is the result of anything other than active efforts to redress the former injustice, Lats? Exactly the sort of "active effort" that is the driving force behind the latest initiative.


????


You'll acknowledge that that's a big "if". Even so, the old "just be patient and wait for things to change" suggestion is no solution - without definite action to alter things, they stay the same. Women attempting to work in Music now need initiatives such as this now, not in 20 years time (possibly - or maybe 30 ... or ...)


But how on earth are you going to get access to "a hundred examples" without such initiatives?

On 1, Serial_Apologist closes his eyes when attending concerts. I have been known to do the same although not with any regularity. Sometimes knowing that people are creating music is a distraction, especially if they are not interesting individuals. There is a great deal to be said for approaching it as a different form of natural sound. I can tell you categorically that pop music wasn't killed by a natural development in which human beings suddenly lost musical ability. It was usurped by the prioritising of an "I am a man" and an "I am a woman" prancing around. One of the greatest delights in my life was to discover that some of the finest people in music were grumpy, difficult, unattractive and might as well for the purposes of anything relevant to music be almost sexless. As for orchestras on television, I do look at them but what interests me is the expressions on their faces. I prefer them to be joyous or serene. But anyhow, there has been effort as you say. I am all for it and it can be rewarding. That is why there is only one person who has posted links to two female composers in the past two days. Me. What I am against is quotas. They don't accentuate individuality and often come from an angle which suggests erroneously that all men are an all-powerful amalgam.

On 2, I can only repeat that most composers who people make reference to are dead. Perhaps I misunderstood you but I thought you were saying that the new 50% target concerns performers at the HCMF and then went on to be upset about the lack of women composers in the pieces put forward by applicant groups. Those two things are not the same. Unlike composers, all potential performers are living and the target would only apply to them. On 3, if it is money that is needed then it should be funnelled in. I can't influence that. The only people who can are the ones who can establish quotas. That is the influential who are approaching it all from the wrong end. On 4, That is not for me to do. I put it out as a challenge.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What I am against is quotas. They don't accentuate individuality and often come from an angle which suggests erroneously that all men are an all-powerful amalgam.

Do you have any evidence for this, Lats?

On 2, I can only repeat that most composers who people make reference to are dead. Perhaps I misunderstood you but I thought you were saying that the new 50% target concerns performers at the HCMF and then went on to be upset about the lack of women composers in the pieces put forward by applicant groups.

I apologise for taking it for granted that people would know that "HCMF" stands for "Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival" - it programmes (almost) only Music by living composers; the point that "most referenced composers are dead" isn't relevant here: that is why the statistics here (of all places) are so depressing.

On 4, That is not for me to do. I put it out as a challenge.

But ... if "[t]hat's not for [you] to do", it has to be done by performers and concert agencies - and the only way that they can do this to meet the "hundred examples" that you demand, is to to programme more works by women composers so that you hear that number. The signatories to the new scheme have committed themselves to meeting the "challenge" you throw down at them, and what do you do? Moan about "quotas"! You can't win with some people!

Anyroadup - blokes arguing amongst themselves about what's best for women: sweeeeeet!

[MrGongGong]

Anyroadup - blokes arguing amongst themselves about what's best for women: sweeeeeet!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Mansplainin' Coltranein' ...!

[Lat-Literal]

Do you have any evidence for this, Lats?


I apologise for taking it for granted that people would know that "HCMF" stands for "Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival" - it programmes (almost) only Music by living composers; the point that "most referenced composers are dead" isn't relevant here: that is why the statistics here (of all places) are so depressing.


But ... if "[t]hat's not for [you] to do", it has to be done by performers and concert agencies - and the only way that they can do this to meet the "hundred examples" that you demand, is to to programme more works by women composers so that you hear that number. The signatories to the new scheme have committed themselves to meeting the "challenge" you throw down at them, and what do you do? Moan about "quotas"! You can't win with some people!

Anyroadup - blokes arguing amongst themselves about what's best for women: sweeeeeet!

Thank you ferney for your further comments.

I know what the HCMF is in full but I didn't know it was mainly about living composers.

There are nuances in my approach. I see women composers of the past as similar to the Suffragettes. Their music has an extra something when one takes account of their isolation and what it took in many cases to make themselves known. I posted a link to Jackie Leven's "Fairytales for Hardmen". As a singer-songwriter, he often painted standard masculinity as a rather forlorn and desperate condition but not in an overly sentimental way so gender there is also relevant. So too Chavela Vargas who in her music challenged to an unprecedented extent notions of what gender means per se. And while there were often one or two women on the pirate ship of The Pogues, it was predominantly a rollicking male affair. There is both individuality and musical relevance in all these examples. What there isn't is a tribalism of two sets of the bland increasingly hung up on statistics with an exceptional ability to complain.

So, yep, there have historically been gender biases in classical music. There may have been gender biases in other music although there are grounds for arguing that men were often just more interested in being involved. I can't comprehend in 2018 how any residual bias that exists can be mainly responsible for the obvious skews. Perhaps people who are directly involved have especial insights or it just might be that women are now pursuing careers in medicine, law and computer science, given the greater opportunities there along with security and financial reward. I'm just not seeing past heroic status in the nature of this poor me modern dialogue. I feel much the same today re race. I'm sorry if this is a failing on my part. But those of us who were actively pushing for RRAs, the end of Apartheid, and very much more on rights want to feel and hear more often that such efforts led to positive outcomes.

Which they did.

[teamsaint]

Anyroadup - blokes arguing amongst themselves about what's best for women: sweeeeeet!

Well the women on the forum are presumably free to join in. I’m sure they will soon.

Isn’t it better that men are having this conversation than not having it?

As an aside, we have just published a book on women’s history. It has had the best reaction in the trade, ( and I mean the big national chains as well as smaller and more niche outlets) of any book we have ever published. It is quite edgy in parts too. And of course the sales process is quite often blokes having discussions with blokes........

[jean]

Well the women on the forum are presumably free to join in. I’m sure they will soon.

Isn’t it better that men are having this conversation than not having it?

That depends on what they say.

Some of you aren't doing too badly.

[Richard Barrett]

Anyroadup - blokes arguing amongst themselves about what's best for women

It's not just that, though, is it? "Blokes" like for example me are in a position to address the problem, precisely because there are far fewer women in such positions of influence, however limited. And, as I said, addressing the problem consists of listening to women's experiences, needs etc. (just as when addressing the issues around the sexual abuse of power) and acting on what one hears.

To Ian's objection from commercial considerations I say: well, so much the worse for the commercial music world, whose profit motive is always going to make it artistically and socially conservative. Those of us who claim to have a more open and exploratory approach to the art need to understand and act on the fact that this can't be separated from the social relations around it.

[Lat-Literal]

After half a century of identity politics:

The one thing that hasn't been tried is a direct reallocation of resources from the top 20% to the bottom 20% irrespective of identity.

Herein is the answer to changing the overall composition and complexion.

[teamsaint]

That depends on what they say.

.

Surely the important thing in a conversation is to speak and then listen, or vice versa, and thus inform oneslf and develop ones views?

[cloughie]

There are nuances in my approach. I see women composers of the past as similar to the Suffragettes.

No, they were Suffragettes eg Ethel Smyth!