Glyndebourne is offering two year residencies for up to four women composers to immerse themselves in the work of the company including an opportunity to apply for funding to create new works during the residency.
More information here:
London New Wind Festival call out for pieces - dateline extended to August 7th! Follow the link below to see how to apply .
Women composers are always highly valued by LNWF
The Director is Catherine Plugyers who is a longstanding member of Women in Music and a fabulous musician whether playing classical or improv .
Taken from the website this is an idea of the London New Wind Festival
"The festival is slowly growing in its scope to reflect the wide interests of its director Catherine Pluygers. For the last two years it has added improvisation concerts to the main core of classical contemporary concerts for wind chamber ensembles. Other areas covered by the festival are ‘new music for wind symphony orchestras’, brass ensembles and ‘new music by women composers.’ At all times the main objective has been to encourage and promote new works written for these wind groups and to that end the festival has worked closely with the main music information centres as well as Society for the Promotion of New Music and each year has had a ‘Call for New Pieces’ which provides about thirty new scores chosen from the one hundred or so that are submitted.
Performers for the festival are provided by a core of professional musicians each with a great deal of experience in the field and a genuine enthusiasm and commitment to new music. "
http://www.londonnewwindfestival.co.uk/
The BBC SSO is giving a concert in celebration of Scottish composer Thea Musgrave, on Friday the 15th June at City Halls, Glasgow at 7.30 pm.
There are more details here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ed5d2m
and more celebrations of her music throughout the year can be found here:
http://www.theamusgrave.com/musgrave-at-90/
For
some years Women in Music (UK) has been doing a survey of the numbers of women
represented in the BBC PROMS season. The
Proms is the largest classical music festival in the world. This year there are
57 main evening orchestral concerts, as well as chamber music concerts, daytime
events and late-night concerts. The audiences in the Royal Albert Hall are of
many thousands, and all the concerts are broadcast, many on television.
This
year the Proms Director, David Pickard, has publicly proclaimed that he intends
to redress the balance between men and women. As far as composers are concerned
he says his aim is to increase the number of BBC commissions to women until
half of new commissions for the Proms season are for women by the year 2022.
The figures for women in the
2018 BBC Proms season are:
Composers: 19/133 (14%) [Last year
was 9/120]
Living
composers: 17/43 (40%) [Last
year was 8/36]
BBC
Commissions: 12/19 (63%) [Last
year was 4/13]
Conductors: 4/58 (7%) [Last
year was 7/57]
This
year I have made a new category for the number of living composers whose works
are substantial (more than 15 mins) and are featured in main evening concerts.
This is because many of the new commissions this year are for short pieces in
chamber concerts or “family” concerts.
Substantial
works by living composers: 5/14 (36%)
The
women composers are: Kerry Andrew, Lili Boulanger, Tansy Davies, Bushra
El-Turk, Suzanne Farrin, lisa Illean, Hannah Kendall, Anna Meredith, Isobel
Mundry, Thea Musgrave, Laura Mvula, Olga Neuwirth, Roxanna Panufnik, Eve
Risser, Nina Senk, Caroline Shaw, Ethel Smyth, Jessica Wells, Agata Zubel
The
conductors are: Marin Alsop; Karina Canellakis; Sian Edwards; Jane Glover.
To
analyse the results: These figures are substantially better than
they have ever been. The previous best for composers was in 2015 when there
were 12 female composers in the Proms season. The number of female conductors
is down from last year, but that was an all-time high. Last year when I looked
at the duration of the works by living composers I found that only one woman
composer had a substantial work (15 mins or over), and that was not in a main
evening concert at the Royal Albert Hall. That was compared to 17 substantial
works by male composers in the main evening concerts. To have 5 substantial
works by women this year is unprecedented.
It does
seem that there is a marked improvement regarding the proportion of women
composers in the 2018 BBC Proms season, with promise of this continuing. I take it that this is, in part, a response to
the publicity generated by Women in Music (my survey started in the 1980s) and
taken up by other music journalists and publicists. Result!
I
have never implied that the BBC Proms season is any worse than any other
substantial classical music season or festival – only that it is
representative. I will now have to think whether to continue the Proms survey,
or maybe switch attention to other seasons elsewhere.
Jenny Fowler
NOTE: Anyone is welcome to quote these statistics, but please mention the source. The figures for past Proms seasons are also available on the Women in Music (UK) website: www.womeninmusic.org.uk
Louise Farrenc's Symphony No 3, is performed by the Insula Orchestra conducted by Laurence Equilbey at the Barbican on 8 March at 7.30 pm
Jessica Duchen's conversation with Equilbey can be found on her blog
https://jessicamusic.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/next-to-beethoven-louise-farrenc.html
Illuminate, set up by composer Angela Slater, promotes the work of women composers and performers. Their 2018 concert series starts on International Women's Day with a concert at Goldsmiths in London at 6 pm.
There is more information about this and their tour dates and venues here:
https://www.illuminatewomensmusic.co.uk/whats-on.html
'Much looking forward to Kenya's IWD Orchestra performing music from my opera, Dido Belle, from my Heroines of Opera series for International Women's Day at the Kenya National Theatre, 8 March, 7pm. Dear Friends in Kenya - please spread the word and attend the gig if you can'
Shirley Thompson
Welcome to Women in Music UK's blog. Here we will be able to discuss issues that any member would like to bring to the group. I hope everyone finds this blog useful and informative. All the best.