BY RACHEL BRUERVILLE, COMPOSER
So you think there are no female composers?
Actually, there are thousands of female composers. More than 6000, in fact, across 70 countries.
This is the pool of talent from which Gabriella Di Laccio is creating her own project, DONNE: Women In Music. It’s a website that we’re pretty excited about – and that’s because it contains pages and pages of female composers, documenting their lives and works as they have existed for centuries.
Organised by date from pre-16th Century to today, Gabriella’s The Big List features the greats who we know and love – Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Liza Lim – and many others who we haven’t even heard of. Let’s read about them, let’s listen to them, and let’s program them into our performances. These are voices that need to be heard.
Gabriella’s philosophy for the project is “to reveal the world of women composers, many of whom went unrecognised in their lifetimes or whose music was allowed to disappear from the public ear, unacknowledged and ignored”.
To get us started – please give us a bit of background about how DONNE and The Big List came to be.
My research for women composers started as a personal interest. Finding new repertoire to perform and share with audiences is something I have always enjoyed. So, a couple of years ago, I decided to search for songs composed by women, for a recital I was planning. I had no doubt that I would find plenty of repertoire, but what I didn’t expect to find was such a high number of women composers.
I bought many books on the subject but one of them was quite a revelation: the International Encyclopedia of Women Composers by Aaron I. Cohen. Almost by chance, I came across a secondhand copy of this two-volume publication, and when I read it I was quite surprised with the content.
Mr. Cohen worked for more than eight years researching the women on these pages, listing them alphabetically, chronologically, by country, by instrumentation of the compositions, providing a very detailed picture of his findings; which, by the date of the second publication (1987), came to more than 6000 composers in over 70 countries.
After my initial astonishment, I must say that I felt quite ashamed. How could I not be aware of this? Why hadn’t I researched this before? I have been going to concerts from a very young age – and during all these years I never really questioned the fact that almost all concerts would present a program with works by male composers only. Did I simply assume that there were not many women composers? Did I indirectly comply with the notion that there were not enough works by women to be part of a concert program? Whatever the reason, I simply couldn’t do that anymore. And somehow, I almost felt like shouting about the subject to anyone who would listen to me.
So what did you find?
I continued my search, and when you do search, you find many wonderful societies, associations, trusts, and individual researchers all over the world who are aware of the fact – but somehow, the message was not receiving its deserved spotlight. I felt that there was a need to bring this information to life with a 21st Century approach.
In the society we live in at the moment, with so short an attention span, it is very difficult to be heard. So I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the historical composers with short videos, just to bring them to life and generate curiosity in the people watching it. I also started to contact contemporary composers all over the world and invite them to answer some questions, either in person or by video. I wanted to inspire the new generations and put them in contact with women making music today. The response I had was unbelievably positive and that was extremely heartwarming and encouraging.
So, on International Women’s Day 2018, DONNE came to life: a new platform where people can learn more about female composers from past and present. I also felt that it was important to create a database so people could find further names, and that’s how The Big List came to life. So far, we have 10 pages with links to more than 4000 composers chronologically organised, and this list will continue to grow.
Who are the female composers who most inspire you, and why? (If you can pick just a few!)
This is a very hard question; especially because at the moment, I am discovering new composers every week and, without exception, all of them are extraordinary women, to say the least.
Being an artist has never been an easy journey throughout history. But being recognised as a woman composer was something almost inconceivable for so many of these women. Still, by an extraordinary strength, perseverance, and resilience they managed to believe in their own voices, even when the rest of the world was telling them to be quiet. They all inspire me!
But if I had to choose a few, I would choose the very first women composers whose music I sang: Barbara Strozzi, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Amy Beach, and Rebecca Clarke.
Speaking as a performer yourself, do you think that performers should always be aiming for greater gender diversity in programming?
I strongly believe that it is our job as performers – especially as female performers – to be aware of the lack of diversity in concert programs and to make changes when we can. I am finding it quite hard not to question organisers when I am hired for a job, and if there is any flexibility on the programming I certainly make a suggestion.
But I understand that it is my job to be well informed, to research works that suit my voice, to speak to living composers, to collaborate with them and to be ready to contribute as an artist, and not only expect that others would do the work for me.
I do believe that we should be aiming for much greater diversity when it comes to concert seasons programming. Our latest research is quite shocking:
During the 2018/2019 orchestra season, 15 orchestras worldwide will perform more than 3500 works: only 2.3 per cent of the pieces were written by women composers. Out of 1445 concert worldwide, only 76 included at least one piece by a woman composer.
We simply don’t have any excuses anymore: there are plenty of historical women composers, we can access their music, there is a very high number of extremely talented women composers still alive, and their music is outstanding! The only way forward is to create a more equal environment in concert halls, and it’s our job as performers to do our part in making this change happen.
Some people may say that including female composers in their programming could be tokenistic. What do you think about those points of view?
Hmmmm…. Honestly? I would say that they are narrow-minded points of view that come from a place of lack of information and an old-fashion mentality. I will have to paraphrase the singer-songwriter Pink: Women in music don’t need to ‘step up’—women have been stepping since the beginning of time.
It is time we give them recognition.
Do you have any advice for composers who may be struggling to find equal representation in the Western ‘classical’ music world, which we cannot deny is dominated by dead white males?
First of all, don’t give up! Find musicians to collaborate with: there are many people out there who are willing to perform new music and together we can be stronger.
Keep always learning and developing your own style and your own voice. Quoting a composer I interviewed recently (Catarina Domenici): ‘Find your own voice and cultivated it! Because musical fashions come and go, but your voice is yours, only!’.
And even if your voice might not reach all people, it will certainly touch some of them, bring joy to their lives, bring comfort to some and inspire others. And that is the real meaning of this beautiful art that is music. And that has no gender.
Read The Big List on Gabriella’s website DONNE: Women in Music. Who will you program into your next performance?
Did you enjoy the read?
If you did, shout Rachel Bruerville a coffee. She volunteered her time to bring you this story about women in composition.
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Image supplied. Credit: Anatole Klapouch
