Student demands female composers on A-level music syllabus

[niyad]

Student demands female composers on A-level music syllabus

Petition calls for Edexcel to change syllabus after student points out that it features 63 male composers and no female ones


clara schumann



fanny hensel mendelssohn


maria szymanowska


alexandra du bois


A student has launched an online campaign to ensure that women are represented on Edexcel’s A-level music syllabus, which currently features 63 male composers and no female ones. Seventeen-year-old Jessy McCabe noticed the lack of female representation on the exam board’s music syllabus after participating in a programme on gender inequality.
. . . . .

In response to an email from McCabe, the head of music wrote: “Given that female composers were not prominent in the western classical tradition (or others for that matter), there would be very few female composers that could be included.”

McCabe wrote on a change.org petition page that such assertions were simply untrue. “Only three days earlier (8 March 2015), BBC Radio 3 managed to do a whole day of programming of female composers to honour International Women’s Day,” she wrote. “Surely, if BBC Radio 3 can play music composed by women for a whole day, Edexcel could select at least one to be part of the syllabus alongside the likes of Holborne, Haydn and Howlin’ Wolf?”

She added: “This has got to change. How can we expect girls to aspire to be composers and musicians if they don’t have the opportunity to learn of any role models? How can we accept that the UK’s largest awarding body doesn’t adequately acknowledge the work of female musicians? Why are we limiting diversity in a subject which thrives on astounding breadth?”
Women composers deserve much better

. . . .

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/aug/18/female-composers-a-level-music-syllabus-petition

below is a link to an article about that bbc3 programme and some of the composers that were highlighted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/international-womens-day-r3

some excellent resources on women composers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02kn2t6

list of women composers by birth year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_composers_by_birth_year

celebrating women composers:

https://blog.soton.ac.uk/music/2015/03/01/celebrating-women-composers/

march of the women: discovering classical music's forgotten voices:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/09/march-women-southbank-classical-music

[malthaussen]

1. Frankly, I think the best female composers are Carole King or Joni Mitchell...

There really aren't many females in classical music who have done stuff worth writing home about. And while 63 seems like a large number, once you sit down and start listing true masters, the numbers mount quickly. Taste gets in the way, too. Is Clara Schuman better then (or even par with) Bela Bartok? Depends on how you feel about dissonance.

I don't fully agree with the argument in the last sentence, either. Is a mediocre "role model" valuable solely by merit of her gender? If that were so, wouldn't it follow that there should not have been blacks playing professional baseball when all the role-models were whites? I'd submit it is less in the access to role-models and more in the way society chooses to encourage or discourage certain behaviors that is of more consequence. Women writers and poets are well-thought of and numerous, painters and composers less so. It might be more fruitful to examine why we discourage women from entering such fields, rather than holding up examples which may well fall short of greatness for them to emulate.

-- Mal

[DavidDvorkin]

2. That was my reaction

Including a composer because of sex makes as little sense as excluding one for the same reason.

[dhill926]

3. In terms of contemporary music…

At least two stand out, and many more if I gave it some thought. Joan Tower and Jennifer Higdon. Feel free to add to the list…

[niyad]

4. thank you, I will certainly add them.

[whatthehey]

5. There were many decent female composers but few game changers

von Bingen was of course, but that is a remote period lacking the solid documentation to be a good 17-18 year old research/study topic. Schumann had undeniable skill but derivative indeed. Same with Mendelssohn/Hensel. Both were so obviously overshadowed by male family members that including them would reek of tokenism.

I'm a huge fan of what little Emilie Mayer has been published or recorded (check out Symph 5, about the only recording likely findable), but I couldn't really claim landmark status for her either.

About the best option I might suggest is Carwithen/Alwyn who was at least, bear with me as this sounds weird, retroactively original. She did not go as deep into the academic obscurantism of mid 20th C composition as William, but integrated bits of modernist technique with late Romantic aesthetics. Her piano concerto would be a good study piece for A level music theory I would think.

[markpkessinger]

6. My undergrad degree is in music . . .

. . . from Westminster Choir College, in Princeton, NJ. As part of the core curriculum, we studied Western music history from about the 9th C. to the (then present) 20th C. When one studies music history, one doesn't study every single composer from every era -- time would never allow it! Rather, the characteristics of compositions of each period are studied and analyzed, with special attention given to those composers who were seen as either most representative and/or influential of a given period, or who introduced some new compositional form or technique or refinement, or who broke new compositional ground in some way.

Unfortunately, for most of the history of Western music, there haven't been many women composers. And in earlier periods, few of those women composers who did exist were rarely standouts. (Clara Schumann, wife of Robert, comes to mind, but she was far more influential as a performer than as a composer.) Thankfully, that is changing somewhat, but it is still a very heavily male-dominated field.

[niyad]

7. given the lists that I posted (and quite a number that I didn't), there were more than a few

women composers. given the male bias in education in nearly all fields, one wonders how many women were simply ignored, or their work credited to others (male).

anonymous was a woman!

[markpkessinger]

8. Yes, there were some . . .

. . . and some good ones, too. But even of the ones you listed, none of them really held a pivotal place in compositional history and development. Not to say they couldn't have, but for the cultural bias in favor of males. Although certainly in more recent history, there is no excuse for omitting women composers.