BY ZOE DOUGLAS-KINGHORN, LEAD WRITER
Are you a young female composer with something to say?
This is your chance to enter an inspiring new program: the Carol Day Commission. It’ll award $5,000 to a female-identifying composer under the age of 35, who will create a new piece of music and have it workshopped in a week-long intensive with conductor Benjamin Northey.
The groundbreaking new commission opportunity will culminate in a July 2019 performance as part of a collaborative concert program featuring Indigenous work Jandamarra, Sing for the Country: Ngalanybarra Muwayi.
We chat to three members of the WAYO team behind the Carol Day Commission to bring you the story on gender parity, intercultural collaboration, and the importance of youth orchestras in the classical music industry.
Above: It’s Carol Day herself, long-term chair and co-founder of WAYO (supplied).
What are you looking for in the commission? What kind of new music excites you?
Carol Day: Music that has something to say! [We’re looking for] music that is communicative in some way. We are so thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity, and are looking forward to providing a platform for a new and unique perspective. There are so many exciting compositional voices out there, and we can’t wait to hear what this woman has to contribute.
What have been the most challenging aspects of your career in musical leadership?
CD: The challenge all arts organisations face is the need to run their affairs on a limited budget. They need to have the skills of all small businesses to maintain high artistic and management standards, whilst enabling their young members to belong at an accessible fee. This requires excellent management to develop programs – the latest of which are Jandamarra, Sing for the Country: Ngalanybarra Muwayi and the Composer Commission project.
The key to our progress is that everyone who has ever been involved with us over the last 40 years has always had the wellbeing of WAYO as their prime goal, with the provision of the best musical experience to our members, with the best staff available.
Additionally, you have to meet industry pay standards to attract and keep good dedicated staff. The arts are not highly paid but have to seek good staff in a competitive environment. We have been most fortunate to have done this over all the past 40 years.
As a young student, the youth orchestra shaped a big part of my own life. How do you see the role of youth orchestras in developing the next generation of classical musicians?
CD: The role of youth orchestras in developing the next generation of classical musicians cannot be overstated.
I was never in a youth orchestra, but I played cello in a community orchestra. […] Both my daughters, Di (violin) and Kate (viola), went through WAYO. Kate is now a professional violist in the United States with a career in Boston and Los Angeles. I have seen first-hand the lasting impact that youth orchestras can have on one’s career.
Has gender disparity become less of a barrier in classical music in recent years? How have you seen this change?
Rebecca Smith (WAYO Sponsorship and Development Manager): That depends on which discipline you’re focusing on. In terms of composition, no. Though the beginnings of a cultural shift can certainly be seen, which is so exciting, this hasn’t yet filtered through to actionable change.
Some recent statistics compiled by DONNE: Women in Music show that of 1,445 classical concerts from 2018-2019, only 76 of those included at least one piece composed by a woman. Out of a total 3,524 works performed at these concerts, 3,442 were written by men, and 82 by women. That’s a staggering disparity.
What is fantastic is that people are cottoning on now. There is a dialogue that is gaining strength every day, and it’s only a matter of time before the major performing arts organisations of the world will be held accountable.
Above: WAYO’s Rebecca Smith captured by Qin Ding (supplied).
Jandamarra, Sing for the Country: Ngalanybarra Muwayi is a really important work, and it’ll be premiered alongside the Carol Day Commission awardee’s composition in 2019. Tell us more about the collaboration with Indigenous musicians in WAYO’s programming.
Ben Burgess (WAYO Executive Director): Jandamarra represents a first for WAYO in collaborating with Indigenous musicians, actors, and dancers; and the work brings together all these elements combined with an orchestra, solo vocalists and choirs. […] It will also be an enriching experience for our WAYO members to be a part of this production and bring it to life.
This project is key to WAYO’s continued development and focus on youth cultural exchange; facilitating education and understanding. The fact that it is also a Western Australian story, and WAYO would be premiering it in Western Australia, made it a wonderfully easy and obvious programming decision.
What would you say to young, emerging female composers who are struggling to establish their work?
RS: Establishing oneself as a composer is extremely difficult, particularly for women.
Opportunities are few and far between and, given the climate of the music industry, they are even fewer and farther for women – this is fact. What I would say is this: you have a voice worth hearing, and no one but you is going to bring that voice into the light.
Music is essential to a healthy society, and diversity is paramount to our social and cultural development. We need to make available as many perspectives as possible, yours included. So write as much as you can, listen as much as you can, connect as much as you can, gather a network of supporters, and, above all, make your own opportunities. After all, nothing worth doing is easy.
Entries to the Carol Day Commission close on 15 November, so be quick and apply here!
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