BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Eliza Shephard has long been concerned with a lack of representation in the Australian music industry. She wanted to see more works by women on concert programs, and to have accessed more works by women as part of her early education as a young flute player.
Leading by example, the award-winning musician launched March of the Women — a collection of works by female-identifying composers. As it reaches its fifth year, Eliza has launched a new three-volume set of recordings featuring 31 Australian performers.
The theme for March of the Women in 2024 is Connecting Australia. We settled in for a chat with Eliza to learn more about how her initiative is not only connecting Australian musicians and listeners with more works by women — but how it challenges other artists and organisations to rethink the balance within their own programs.
Eliza, this’ll be your fifth March of the Women — a resounding success. How have you seen this project evolve since the first year?
March of the Women began life as a project essentially existing in my home. It was conceived in February 2020, and the first year of recordings entered the world amidst the early days of the global pandemic.
During that first year, I learnt a lot about recording, videography and editing together sound and audio, and thank goodness I did — with early 2021 also being subject to the various lockdowns and regulations surrounding gatherings and therefore any form of chamber playing, most of the recordings were done in my own home or in spaces that were easily accessible in line with the pandemic rules of the day.
In efforts to ensure the March of the Women displays a wide variety of music, through performances with various colleagues and organisations I have been able to expand the repertoire included within this project over the years, including multiple new commissions and world premieres of small and larger chamber works.
March of the Women 2024 is the first rendition with funding of any sort thanks to Creative Australia, so it has allowed me to expand the project in ways 2020-Eliza could not have imagined.
It’s now a national project, featuring artists who engage with music in inventive and imaginative ways, and bringing their strong artistic visions into this project has further diversified and expanded March of the Women.
Those are some big changes to the project. I’d love to know how you feel the culture of the industry has also developed in this time. Do you believe the need for an initiative like this has shifted, or is it more important than ever?
Thanks to multiple researchers and surveys around the world, there is statistical evidence that we’re still not seeing enough inclusion and diversity in programs for orchestras, chamber groups, and soloists around the world.
Projects like March of the Women are still very important to maintain awareness and to be a platform for change, and to encourage people to think big and be brave to program thoughtful and pioneering repertoire rather than showcasing the same composers’ music year in and year out.
In my research, I have found multiple other programs and organisations that are passionate about this topic and who are constantly searching for new and invigorating ways to encourage diversity. This is a demonstration of how important the work under the March of the Women banner and beyond is to an enormous amount of people.
Through my own curiosity, I started to look at programs for upcoming concerts by artists from around the world with a purely gender-based view on what was being scheduled for performance. It was very disheartening to see the extraordinary imbalance between male and female representation in concert halls. Every now and again, I slip into the same mindset and I’m still disappointed at how infrequently the music by women appears in programs, as well as the immense number of male-only concerts.
Over the years, I’ve been contemplating how I can make March of the Women more thought provoking and inclusive, thus why 2024’s rendition is titled Connecting Australia.
As a beautiful big country, it’s very easy for people with similar visions or creative interests to never cross paths. I wanted to connect further with my immediate community — female flute players — and share my passion for representation with like-minded musicians.
As a performer and music educator, why did you feel it was important to take it upon yourself to curate a substantial collection like this?
This project came from a craving for a new challenge to inspire my creativity, to celebrate an alternate selection of music outside of standard repertoire, and to provide a platform of music for curious and forward-thinking musicians to explore.
I remember reflecting on the music that I played when I was young, how the majority of the works that I was exposed to in my early years were by dead white men and that I could count the number of pieces by female composers I had performed on one hand. It was also disheartening to me as a young performer-composer that I couldn’t see anyone that remotely resembled myself — a young female musician interested in both new sounds and standard playing techniques — in the composers’ music that I played.
March of the Women has shown me that the volume of repertoire written by women is not reflected in resources and learning materials for the young musician. Women have written so much music for all situations of concert music or listening situations, so it confounds me that there is still no representation of their music in the early to intermediate canon of repertoire for young musicians.
March of the Women showcases that there are pieces in existence for musicians who are searching for connection to the composers that they play.
Change begets change, and I wanted to be a leader in shaping an inclusive and exciting future in the Australian music scene. I endeavoured to be a starting point for upcoming musicians to begin their journeys exploring music outside of the traditional canon, and rebalancing the knowledge surrounding composers throughout history.
Tell us a bit more about that theme for 2024 — Connecting Australia.
After the first two years of March of the Women being stuck in lockdowns of various degrees, and then hobbling along as an unfunded ‘passion’ project in 2022-23, I was seeking some sense of community within this project. I wanted to expand March of the Women’s outreach and the musicians involved to show that it is a project for the people.
I approached musicians whose artistic output [spanned] all manner of musical careers, again to showcase diversity but also to celebrate how eclectic the journey of a musician can be. The 31 flute players involved in this year’s rendition are from all walks of life to demonstrate that to be a passionate, enthusiastic musician you can follow whichever pathway you so desire rather than merely following the one most familiar.
As a young musician — and still to this day — I was told that to be seen as a successful musician, you must join an orchestra, and Connecting Australia dispels that idea. Showcasing successful and creative musicians who are involved in many different areas of music and thriving is a demonstration that being successful can be defined differently for all.
What went into the process of connecting each performer with the pieces of music?
The performers came first in the curation of this project. I wanted a range of different artistic voices and experiences involved, and knew that an eclectic selection would provide for diversity and intrigue in programming.
I generated a list of around 250 pieces for ‘flute+’ — any works involving flute, from solo flute, to duos, trios, etc. — and gave this list to the MOTW 2024 artists so that they could select a work that either spoke to them, matched their artistic voice, or was written by a composer with whom they already had a connection. I also invited the artists to put forward any works that they may have commissioned themselves or knew about that I hadn’t yet uncovered in my research.
A few artists were open to my suggestions for repertoire for them to play so, informed by the program existing at the time, I made proposals to these artists as to what might fill a need within the collection.
Who are some of the composers you’re really excited to be representing in your March of the Women initiative?
That’s a hard question: there are far too many incredible compositional voices to choose from! I’m thrilled that we have some many styles and genres of music involved in this year meaning that there truly is something for everyone.
I will note that there is a brand new commission from Julia Potter that I’m excited for the world to hear, as well as first recordings of a large number of pieces from all sorts of eras of music, some flute ASMR from Samantha Wolf, the appearance of auxiliary and baroque flutes plus a Chinese dizi in Liz Cheung’s music.
Classic Australian compositional voices are also reflected in these albums, featuring music by Miriam Hyde, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, and Esther Rofe, alongside leading compositional voices of the 21st Century such as Alice Chance and Liza Lim.
I’d like to ask you a speculative question before we go. What does an ideal Australian music industry look like for women who compose?
I love this question. An ideal Australian – and indeed further afield – music community should represent and champion a diverse range of composers and creatives. This inclusion of all provides communities with a magnitude of voices and storytelling to take place from a range of viewpoints and cultures.
From this diversity, future generations will see that they can share in the joy of creating, rather than feeling unwelcome in a space that they are not represented in.
All three volumes of March of the Women 2024: Connecting Australia are now available via Eliza Shephard’s website.
Images supplied. Eliza captured by Cameron Jamieson. Melanie Walters by Dennis Grauel.
