BBC’s women power list is as narrow as it gets
mainThe presence of Jessica Duchen on the jury choosing BBC Woman’s Hour 2o18 power list has yielded a disproportionate representation of classical women among the all-powerful.
But Jessica’s choices are London-centric and myopic to a fault. A payroll editor on BBC Radio 3 is powerful? Two token women composers (if two, why not ten)? The head of one London orchestra, but not another? An American conductor who holds no post in the UK? And only Nicki Benedetti from outside London. Come on…
You can peruse the peculiar BBC list here.
Here’s the Slippedisc powerlist on UK classical women 2018:
1 Wasfi Kani, founder Grange Park Opera
2 Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, music director CBSO
3 Dame Sarah Connolly, diva
4 Xian Zhang, conductor BBC National Orchestra of Wales
5 Rebecca Allen, head of Decca
6 Kathryn McDowell, CEO LSO
7 Helen Sprott, CEO Philharmonia Orch
8 Sandra Parr, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
9 Fiona Maddocks, Somerset, critic
10 Jan Younghusband, head of classical music BBC-TV
11 Chi-chi Nwanoku, diversity campaigner
12 Roxanna Panufnik, composer
13 Natalya Romaniw, Cardiff, rising diva
14 Helen Grime, York, composer
15 Rachel Podger, south Wales, early music activist
16 Kathryn Enticott, Horsham, agent
17 Aliye Cornish, Oxfordshire, anti-Brexit campaigner
18 Lorna Aizlewood, agency CEO
19 Gillian Moore, South Bank booker
20 Lauren Zhang, Birmingham, BBC Young Musician 2018
More representative, more diverse, more regional than the BBC.
Quickly! NL reckons everyone needs to get really angry about this! No time to explain! Just grab a pitchfork and start yelling!
Rachel Podger? Really? Talk about a joke.
The real shock in NL’s list is that Mirga is at #2 (and not #1) … Really, Norman, how could you?!
Ha! Nice one. Still, the mercurial Wasfi Kani is a great choice for gold.
Indeed, this is one of the most powerful events in music today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7huSiJ2bKF0
Despite not winning the young musician of the year, I would have thought that Jess Gillam is far more influential than Lauren Zhang who so far has really done no more than win the award, an achievement matched by several other young women.
+100
Hi Norman,
— I like your alternatives. Sorry if you don’t like ours. Five are the same; and several more of yours were on our long list, but ended up on the cutting-room floor, albeit with much regret. Incidentally so did some who are not on your list either and are also not London-based.
— We had 40 places covering every genre of music. Go figure, as they say.
— We had a panel of 4 judges, so I definitely can’t take all the credit.
— If we’d included another head of a London orchestra, that would have been quite London-centric too, no??
— That section of Radio 3 is based in Salford.
— The brief was to compile a “power list” – i.e., looking at the degree of power and influence wielded by these individuals in the music industry, across the board, all genres. That would automatically excise several people from your list who are wonderful artists/composers, but do not wield the requisite reins of power. From the classical angle I can’t imagine the list without any of the people we did include – and I think my fellow judges would all join me in saying we totally stand by the decisions, even if we wish the list could have been three times as long.
— Hope that helps.
Cheers,
JD
It’s always interesting when Norman rides one of his stable of betes noir. You are right to reply but the interesting point is all music criticism and comment in UK is massively London centric
Classy response as expected from JD! Brava
Isn’t N°11 that double bassist who wants a black-only orchestra or something like that?
What is the point of asking faux naif questions to which you know the answer, Mr Rook?
Because I wasn’t sure and couldn’t be bothered to look it up. Calm down.
I can calmly state that indolence is a poor excuse for ignorance.
You really are a pompous prick, aren’t you?
+1000!
Sorry Stephen,my +1000 was meant as a reply to your comment regarding ignorance/indolence
Are you the same Stephen Whitaker from Melton Mowbray who played percussion and piano in Pinkett’s LSSO?
Two pompous pricks, then.
You really are an easily triggered Corvid, are you not? I am willing to bet that you regard most of these women as repulsive, shrill harridans attempting to monopolise the discourse on the music world.
You really are an easily triggered Corvid, are you not? I am willing to bet that you regard most of these women as repulsive, shrill harridans attempting to monopolise the discourse on the music world.
Then bet away, if you have the time to spare. I do not.
So good, he said it twice…. 🙂
My apologies for the accidental double posting. Radiotherapy sessions may give one the unoccupied hours to be filled with Internet discussions but diminish one’s control of technology.
Sorry to hear that, Stephen. I assure you my comment here was a mere plaisanterie, not a criticism.
Yes. And if we requested a white only/anglo Saxon/northern/scottish/geordie whatever orchestra, we’d be accused of being xenophobic. It’s getting ridiculous in the Arts – should be based on talent only, not by a PC stance.
In the days when orchestras were indeed monocultural and single gendered nobody needed to request them to be so and nobody bothered to question their rules which were clearly not based on the selection of the meritorious only.
Chineke! is not an all-black orchestra. It has a majority of members of black, Asian, and mixed-race ethnicity, but there are also white people in the orchestra.
BTW: ‘Early music activist’ sounds rather subversive, like a militant, melomaniacal vegan.
Norman Lebrecht,
How dare you insult my wife (Jessica Duchen) in that cheap despicable way; if this had been the 19th. century, I would have challenged you to a dual.
In the absence of that particular modus operandi, I demand at least, an immediate apology.
Hard as it may be for you, Tom Eisner, try to be a rational human being.
Duels. Tom,I presume that you are referring to fencing Duels? If so,congratulations! You are in very noble company: Giuseppe Tartini,Le Chevalier de Saint Georges and Giovanni Giornovichi aka Ivan Jarnovic. Three great violinists who were also ace fencers. Well,if you can’t beat them……
It seems a bit odd to describe Chi-chi Nwanoku as a diversity campaigner with no reference to the fact that she is also a double bassist. Indeed, surely she is first and foremost a double bassist.
Certainly, but who cares about the music? Identity politics must come first.
Well said Sir.
Agreed, John. There are people on this unneccesary list who shouldn’t be there, like the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year 2018. She may be a fine musician, but how does that make her powerful? It would be a better discussion if we substituted the word “powerful” with “influential” or “successful” or maybe just “highly accomplished”. If we did that, there might be fewer activists, campaigners and agents on the list and more people like Evelyn Glennie, Jane Glover, Nicola Benedetti, Alison Bolsom and Sally Beamish. All off Ms Duchen’s radar, I suppose.
The 2018 Young Musician was on Norman Lebrecht’s list and not on the list of the BBC’s Woman’s Hour.
Ah, that escaped me. You mean the names marked in red are Norman’s selections? Hmmm…..
Why is the Master of the Queen’s Music on neither list?
Wonder why it’s not Mistress of the Queen’s Music?
Because, as I expect you are aware, the term is all-encompassing. (Ever heard of ‘mistressful’? ‘Mistressly’?) And yes, why isn’t Judith Weir on this list?
I’m surprised that the ambitious Jessica didn’t somehow manage to slip herself onto the list
Good grief! I’m not having a good day! I must now apologize to Norman, for thinking that his list (the only one I perused initially) was Jessica Duchen’s (and the rest of the Woman’s Hour panel), and to Ms Duchen for not immediately looking at their comprehensive list of names. Now I have and I can’t tell you how gratified I am to see the awesome Beyonce Knowles occupying top spot, with Taylor Swift as runner up and Adele a worthy 4th ! That amply compensates for the fact that Marin Alsop had to settle for nr. 8 and Nicola Benedetti for a modest 18. As with Norman’s effort, I still miss female conducting pioneer Jane Glover of the London Mozart Players, Evelyn Glennie (beautiful, brilliant and deaf) and Sally Beamish, a composer of some note. The list, no longer exclusively a UK affair, is also strangely parochial. If your language isn’t English you don’t get a look-in. Thus, names like Gubaidulina, Wang, Bartoli, Haim etc.etc.are inexplicably absent. Was this a pointless exercise and a complete waste of time? You bet it was!
It was always intended as a UK-focused list, following the models of the other Woman’s Hour Power Lists – an annual event, exploring a different industry each time. This one was for the music industry as a whole.
Yes, very London-centric. Wales doesn’t get a look in. Surely Deborah Keyzer, who runs Tŷ Cerdd and administers all kinds of important music programmes for the country, should be there. But, oh well, it’s only Wales . . .
A few years ago I heard a performance of Sally Beamish’s Spinal Chords. If that is in any way representative of her output as a whole, she is not a composer I am interested in. I agree entirely, however, in identifying Sofia Gubaidulina as not only one of the most important female composers alive today, but one of the greatest of all contemporary composers, comparable to Arvo Pärt.
Yes. Norman’s selection is much more balanced and logical and representative.
I hate agreeing wirh Norman but I do for once I question why power has to be so narrowly defined : why does someone who runs Southbank Centre have more power than an artist or composer? Sorry to say but it feels Madame Duchen was just using the ones useful to herself … it’s a shame she had such a great opportunity to be diverse in her choosing and went for predictable choices