Approximately 70% of premieres are by women
NewsDonaueschingen, crucible of post-war German modernism, has unrolled this year’s festival.
Crucial fact: This year Donaueschinger Musiktage will present 23 world premieres, approximately 70% of which are by women. Around two-thirds of the composers will be present at the festival for the first time.
Other blurb: “Today’s contemporary music scenes owe their vitality and diversity in large part to integrated and collaborative practices embracing ‘distributed creativity’,” says Lydia Rilling, artistic director of the Donaueschinger Musiktage. “Improvisation often plays an important role and frequently causes the distinction between composition and performance to become blurred or irrelevant. The title of this year’s festival emphasizes the shift in creative work and the development of a laboratory in which to play with the possibilities: colLABORation.”
I remember that until fairly recently women composers were rare at this festival. Concepts of gender diversity were considered a sort a delusion centered in the English-speaking world. Even if slow to arrive, the change is welcome. Bout time, as they say.
I’d be curious to hear the premieres but I’m trying to think of great ensemble works (outside the jazz genre) in which the improvisation is a crucial part of its greatness.
One can improvise in a baroque figured bass or a classical concerto cadenza, but the host work still stands without it.
There’s a growing amount of people who improvisation is really critical to how the work exists, especially Alex Paxton. It’s also been a really critical and essential part of how David Rosenboom and La Monte Young’s music has existed for a long time.
If I understand correctly, one of the commissioned works for the festival has the soloists improvising their parts with the orchestra.
Good!
Downvotes in these comments seem to reflect an unfortunate misogyny. Here at Disney hall in LA, I’ve seen Dudamel preside over many women’s premiers in the past four years, the majority of which, by those such as Gabriela Ortiz, have been excellent. I hope the Phil commissions many more.
Downvotes could also represent skeptical opinions that not all composers or their works are receiving advocacy for their merit.
But it is nice to hear that you enjoyed the works by female composers Dudamel spotlighted. I’d love to hear the next Clara Schumann!
As with auditions for instrumentalists, selecting new works for performance should be both race and gender blind.
The performance practices of classical music are so codified that they have very little variation. Composition, however, covers the widest extremes of methods and styles. Every work is a highly personal and unique expression. Race and gender can be an important part of that expression. Hence our need to consider those characteristics in our programming if we want to present and understand the worldview of others. Promoting blindness to race and gender in programming becomes a specious way for reactionaries to protect the status quo.
Race and gender can be an important part of that expression. ………..care to explain how? I presume from your comment that on hearing an unknown piece of music you would be able to tell the race, gender, sexual orientation and other proclivities of the individual composer! My god willy you must be a very talented man.
It would be nice if we can get to the point when the gender of a composer is no longer noteworthy.
I think (or is it hope) that is now generally the case with soloists and orchestral musicians, and in chamber music, but not yet there with conductors.
Commissions and first performances follow mostly political agendas and over time don’t mean a thing. Some of those new works will be played elsewhere one time, but how many next year and later?
Lemme guess… Lots of “open” scores without much actual composition.