15 CONCERT 5
CANBERRA CENTRE presents:
SUNDAY MAY 11
The Vessel
1.30PM
FITTERS’ WORKSHOP
This concert is supported by Warren Curry and Randy Goldberg Celebrating the women in music
Music by composer-in-residence Elena Kats-Chernin Marcato: Festival Direction WP Two Stolen Pieces
WP
April Code Prelude and Cube WP
Dance of the Paper Umbrellas WP
Tango Nochy WP
Russian Toccata Pv
Russian Rag
Eliza Aria
Scherzino
Elena Kats-Chernin, Tamara-Anna Cislowska PIANO
There is no doubt about it: if it weren’t for Canberra women this Festival would not be happening. As we saw on the previous page, the Festival originated through the concern of two women, Edith Butler and Ursula Callus, to ensure that music students in Canberra had places and occasions in which to perform. The organisation they created, Pro Musica, Inc., has been proud to claim women as its patrons, both current, Barbara Blackman, and recently retired, Dame Quentin Bryce. Four of the nine current Pro Musica Board members, including the current President, are women. The Festival owes a great debt of gratitude to the generosity of one woman in particular, Barbara Blackman, for a grant that enabled it to expand its scope from a small Chamber Music Festival to the nationally significant festival of today. But the impetus of that gift could not have been sustained without direct financial support for our concerts and our artists from individuals and couples in and beyond Canberra; and a glance at the list overleaf shows that this year, as in previous years, women constitute a significant majority of those supporters. Over the 20 years since 1994 the direction of the Festival itself has been shared pretty much equally between women and men. But a look at p. 84 shows that the current Director is supported in his role by a team in which women carry a major portion of the responsibility. And how would the Festival survive without the volunteers – men, certainly, but particularly women – who give it their time and effort? When it comes to the musicians themselves, the figures are very interesting. Of a total of more than 180 performers participating in the Festival, women slightly outnumber men – by about 95 to 85. (This is not counting the various participating choirs, in all of which women outnumber men to a significant degree.) What is particularly noteworthy is that among close to 70 young musicians participating in this year’s Festival, whether as Sprogis Wood Smith Young Artists, as members of ACO2, or as students from the ANU School of Music, there are well over twice as many women as men. Is something going on? The picture suddenly changes, however, when we look at the musical repertoire of the Festival. Admittedly, it reflects the musical practice of a past era, but it is striking that of the 100 composers represented in this year’s Festival, only 6 are women: Dora Pejačević, Lili Boulanger, Nadia Boulanger, Rosy Wertheim, Ilse Weber – and the composer who has established herself as one of the leading figures in Australian music, with an international reputation to match, and as a role model for the young women composers who are increasingly making their presence felt: Elena Kats-Chernin.