Announcements for concerts with mainly orchestral, but also chamber music by female composers in 2018 have just come in from "frauenkomponiert":
(frauenkomponiert is a not-for-profit association which aims to promote music, primarily orchestral works by women composers, by means of concerts, as well as editions etc.)
The symphony concerts certainly look interesting:
Agnes Tyrrell (1846–1883)
Ouverture to the oratorio ,,Die Könige in Israel", c-Moll (c. 1880)
World premiere
Alma Deutscher (*2005)
Violin Concerto no. 1 (2014/2015)
Swiss Premiere
Heidi Baader-Nobs (*1940)
Evasion (2017)
for Solo Viola and Orchestra
World premiere
*****
Amy Beach (1867–1944)
Symphony for large Orchestra (1896)
Op. 32 "Gaelic", e minor
Details here (http://frauenkomponiert.ch/index.php/en/welcome/).
Precocious, Ms. Deutscher, much- ah, I've seen mention of her before, including briefly here...
There was recently a documentary on Miss Deutscher here in Britain. She's a genius, nothing less.
It is good to have this news especially about Agnes Tyrrrell. Something which has puzzled me about women and music, is this. On this forum I have posted short biographies and lists of compositions of nearly 50 women composers. I don't know of any other site which contains this amount of information about so many. As far as I can discern, there have only been two women making contact with this site and both of them about forebears who I had mentioned. Any thoughts about why it is so male dominated.
Obscurity?
Same reason that the vast (and I mean near 100%) of record/cd collectors are men. Nearly all subscribers of classical magazines are men. Look at the sex of the people in the arena at Proms concerts - 75% men. Yet, it's the women who drag unwilling men to opera and ballet. I'll never figure out why classical music (at least on the consumer side) is so male dominated, but it is. Maybe it's testosterone poisoning.
In fairness though: Nearly all collectors of anything are men. This does not prove anything either way about the appeal of classical music. It is about collecting.
I don't myself remember audiences this male dominated in the concerts I have been to over the years. And the chamber music work shops I sometimes go to tend to have more women than men among the participants (maybe because a lot of them are pensioners and women are the majority of pensioners).
I believe the gender equilibrium or the lack of it in classical music is much more complicated and defies easy explanations. Plus it changes over time. Schnyder von Wartensee's father wanted his son to play the violin, not the piano (which the son preferred) on the grounds that the piano was for girls; proper men played the violin. We still have gender biases as to choice of instruments: Women have been accepted as violinists for a long time (in orchestras anyway) and to a lesser degree for woodwinds, but brass was entirely male until recently. Harp on the other hand, though physically demanding, has long been women only. Weird.
And of course the top jobs--conductor and composer--are still heavily male dominated.
With composing especially, much of the increased number has come in the 20th century (and female composers after 1915 have not, I -think-, been notably more Romantic in style than male composers after 1915, so statistically - we have exceptions such as Dorothy Howell, etc.- just as we have exceptions such as Bortkiewicz, Medtner, ... - but statistically fewer women composers who meet our rules for being considered on this forum, if only, I expect, because of the slow relative progress of civil rights and common perception of common humanity.
(Before bringing up composers before 1915 as though I haven't heard of some of them, take a moment to think about what I am and am not saying and the point I am and am not making-- and give me some credit for possessing a quarter of a mind!)
Inclined to agree with Double-A on the whole, anycase.
Does frauenkomponiert have anything noted by way of orchestral (or any) concerts with music by e.g. Johanna Senfter in the offing?
There is a frauenkomponiert chamber music concert announced for 9 March 2018 with works for violin by Johanna Senfter (plus Louise Farrenc, Clara Schumann), but nothing orchestral that I'm aware of.
Not Switzerland, but the Queer Urban Orchestra in New York City is playing Holmès' "Irlande" on May 5 2018, I see.
According to the "frauenkomponiert" website, the symphony concert with works by Agnes Tyrell, Amy Beach, Alma Deutscher etc. will be broadcast on Swiss radio next month:
Im Konzertsaal, 19.04.2018, 20-22 Uhr, Radio SRF2 Kultur – https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/im-konzertsaal
Quote from: giles.enders on Monday 02 October 2017, 11:27
It is good to have this news especially about Agnes Tyrrrell. Something which has puzzled me about women and music, is this. On this forum I have posted short biographies and lists of compositions of nearly 50 women composers. I don't know of any other site which contains this amount of information about so many. As far as I can discern, there have only been two women making contact with this site and both of them about forebears who I had mentioned. Any thoughts about why it is so male dominated.
At the risk of slightly derailing the discussion, might I suggest, as a historian, that a discussion-oriented site such ast his perhaps isn't very well suited to serve as a permanent repository for information, or at least not as the only repository; things such as Wikipedia serve that function and offer (one hopes) a greater degree of continuity.
Please if creating a page on Wikipedia for the purpose of posting a list then please observe all relevant rules there, including those about _notability_. (A number of people have been adding works to lists of sonatas/concertos/symphonies/etc. there by composers that I wonder if anyone outside of their own family has heard of, let alone satisfying the criteria of notability as outlined on the site, for example. Those particular names should be and will be queried and removed...)
QuoteAny thoughts about why [this forum] is so male dominated?
The same question occurred to me. One thought: the average orchestral player doesn't seem to seek out the kind of erudite discussion found on this forum, for if they did UC would be swarming with females. And a big thank you, Giles, for your yeoman efforts here in providing verified (insofar as is possible) details about women and men who have felt called to enrich musical culture with new compositions, often in the face of obstinate indifference.
Some decades back, when researching composers of the ars subtilior, I was amazed to read a complaint written in the mid 14th century by a Burgundian court musician in his late 40s who complained bitterly that his style of music had lost much of its former popularity and that the court was much more interested in a newer generation of composers. The beat goes on.
On the other hand: The average orchestra player is probably not a collector of recordings. But a large portion of the participants here are. So again, I believe the gender balance here is about collecting. (And maybe about the greater urge of men to debate and pontificate.) No need to question the sophistication of the average orchestra player.
Generally speaking, forums with moderation in the technical / academic / logic direction tend to be overwhelmingly male dominated at least in who posts and participates. (It's even more the case if the medium is rather argumentative in nature, as Wikipedia is at present).
I cannot say what the demographics of those who merely observe are though -- remember that observers are the vast majority. Possibly the record companies might actually have better data on who buys the more obscure composers. I don't think accurate gender balance observations can truly be made based on who posts on a forum, except perhaps in the narrow context of above.
Generally speaking, the statistics I can Google (for example this, (https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/82.pdf) although a bit old) seems to show, for listeners overall, an overall slight lean towards females for classical music as a whole, with a similar lean for operas and a strong female lean for ballet.
Quote from: Wheesht on Saturday 10 March 2018, 15:50
According to the "frauenkomponiert" website, the symphony concert with works by Agnes Tyrell, Amy Beach, Alma Deutscher etc. will be broadcast on Swiss radio next month:
Im Konzertsaal, 19.04.2018, 20-22 Uhr, Radio SRF2 Kultur – https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/im-konzertsaal
I just caught up with the broadcast of this concert and was wondering if anyone else has heard it?
Thanks for the link, Thomas. I've added a link to an mp3 of Tyrell's Overture to Die Könige in Israel to our Downloads Board.