Bibliography –a bit of further reading

-Lucy Green: Music, Gender, Education, Cambridge University Press, 1997: http://books.google.com/books?id=pZgBNUqIbhQC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=false

-Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop with an Introduction by Barbara J. Newman, and Preface by Caroline Walker Bynum (New York: Paulist Press, 1990): http://books.google.com/books?id=57Bpx-FW1IsC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=Hildegard+von+Bingen

-Bruce Holsinger : “The Flesh of the Voice: Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen ”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19 (Autumn, 1993)

-More about Hildegarde von Bingen: http://www.hildegard.org/

-More about Élisabeth Jacquet de la guerre: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1880620/Elisabeth-Claude-Jacquet-de-la-Guerre

-More about Maria Anna Mozart in the New Grove Dictionary: www.oxfordmusiconline.com

-More about Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel: http://www.fannyhensel.de/hensel_eng/bio_frame.htm

-More about Clara Schumann: http://www.kapralova.org/journal13.PDF

-More about Antonia Brico: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/05/obituaries/antonia-brico-87-a-conductor-fought-barriers-to-women-in-30-s.html and
http://archives.susanfleet.com/documents/antonia_brico-and_marin_alsop.html

-More about the Wiener Philharmoniker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Philharmonic#Orchestral_membership_of_women_and_non-European_ethnicities

-More about the French scandal on female conductors:
http://www.therestisnoise.com/2013/10/female-conductors-cont.html https://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/10/women-dont-want-to-conduct-because-its-incompatible-with-family-life.html

-More about women in jazz: http://midget38.hubpages.com/hub/How-women-have-influenced-jazz-music-through-the-decades

-Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction 

-Theodor Adorno/Max Horkheimer: The Culture Industry: Enlightenment and Mass Industry and Towards a New Manifesto   

- Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno (a collective work edited by Renée Heberle): http://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_10565.pdf 

-Bethany Klein:  The new radio: music licensing as a response to industry woe 

-Sinéad O'Connor's open letter to Miley Cyrus: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/03/sinead-o-connor-open-letter-miley-cyrus 

-More about Julia Fischer: http://www.juliafischer.com/index.php/en/

-More about Kaija Saariaho: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/arts/music/19maa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

-Claire Chase, a Mac Arthur prize winner: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/860/
 
-A report on the presence of women on the French music scene, Where are Women: http://www.sacd.fr/uploads/tx_sacdresources/OuSontLesFemmes2013.pdf

-Wikipedia (articles in French and English): Hildegard von Bingen, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Anna Maria Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Wiener Philharmoniker, Marcia Griffith

Towards a new era?

Ella Fitzgerald, a pioneer in jazz singing

Singing is the most common and accepted musical activity for a woman in most cultures. And there are many musical fields still today in which women are mainly present by their voice, one of them being jazz or occasionally for example reggae.

Judy Mowatt, one of the very rare 'Rastawomen'

Lucy Green describes in Music, Gender, Education “the image of the mother privately singing to her baby, the practice which is allowed in all known cultures, and which must be one of the few universal customs of humanity.” (Green, 29) She further mentions the division of private music making (lullabies) and public singing, and concludes, saying: “thus the age-old dichotomy of woman as whore/madonna is reproduced in her musical practice as a singer”. (Green, 29)

The division of women’s roles makes me think of Walter Benjamin, even if he doesn’t discuss the woman’s position in The Work of Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction.

Julia Fischer, the archetype of the modern performer:
mostly known as a violinist, she also perfectly masters the piano

Benjamin thinks of the ritual as an almost spiritual process, creating a strong bond between the performer and the audience. This ritual follows certain very precise rules, which brings us back to the first purposes of music serving religion and celebrating the gods. These rules could not for a long time be broken by feminine presence on stage, as bringing a woman would have made the ritual less spiritual.

Adorno and Horkheimer don't discuss women's position in The Culture Industry: Enlightenment and Mass Industry. But in another context, when discussing with Horkheimer, Adorno states: "I suppose that bourgeois sexual taboos are connected with the jus primae noctis. Women should acquire the right to dispose of their own bodies. Human beings become their own property. That is threatened by sexuality and this sets the scene for the perennial war between the sexes." (Adorno/Horkheimer, Towards a New Manifesto, 10)

There have been several feministic research projects based on Adorno's writings, as discussed for instance in Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno (a collective work edited by Renée Heberle).

It seems that Adorno’s philosophy has some ideas in common with feminists thinking, in the aspect of challenging the dualism that structures Western thinking.

This dualism traditionally gives only two roles to woman: a mother or an entertainer. One can imagine that maybe in dividing culture into art and mass culture as he did, Adorno would have agreed that women are often seen as an object in mass culture, where as in artistic creations, women can also be the ones who create, simply as human beings.

                 Kaija Saariaho, to my knowing only the second woman                    
      to have her opera programmed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York

When looking at the role of women today in mass culture, we easily see, like in most video clips, that women often are objectified.

In a recent open letter, the singer Sinéad O'Connor addresses words of advice to her young colleague Miley Cyrus, who seems willing to play the role of a provocative sexual object, whereas O'Connor thinks that she is talented enough to create herself a career as a real artist without lowering herself to the demands of mass culture and the consumers society.

Sinéad O’Connor certainly knows what she is talking about, and her open letter is warm and wise. But maybe Miley Cyrus also is more aware of her situation than it seems. As Bethany Klein describes in her article The new radio: music licensing as a response to industry woe, becoming ‘the sound of commerce’ can now be a badge of honor, not a shame (Klein, 469). Klein discusses the complex and unexpected new situation, created by economical needs and interests, in radio and television advertising.  Even if based on commercial needs, the situation can also be used by — and helpful for — artists. 

Let’s, not only hope, but rather work constructively in order for the new generation of women artists in all fields to break the conventionally narrow categories and find more space to create and perform music from their own standpoint -not as they are expected to do, or as they have been taught to do.

Claire Chase, flutist, arts entrepreneur and founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble,
recently awarded the Mc Arthur Genius Prize for her innovative work

The woman conductor, yet to conquer the musical world

Antonia Brico, first woman conductor to achieve international recognition

The last domain in Western music world lacking dramatically of female musicians is the field of conducting. There have been only very few women conducting major orchestras, the first one being Antonia Brico (1902-1989). She was the first female conductor to get international recognition, but never wanted to be noticed by her gender. Because never has gender made a difference in the quality scale of someone’s production and noting the gender would be stating a difference between male and female work.

Still today, in all societies, most important positions are held by men, and in many countries it is still difficult to accept for a woman to be in a position of power. Orchestras have only recently been more welcoming to woman musicians, even though it has sometimes raised an issue; in 1996 there was a discussion amongst the Wiener Philharmoniker about the problem of “the loss of unity” and the financial problem caused by the possible maternity leaves, if women would be hired. In this frame of mind, it is easy to understand that the refusal to work with woman conductors and hire them has seemed natural. The situation is slightly different from one culture and country to another, depending of historical and religious circumstances. 
Being French, I have often wondered why in France, it seems women start getting important positions in politics, while in classical music, for a conductor who is a woman it is still difficult. A true rivalry exists also, surprisingly, between women, something I have myself encountered as a conducting student, and having spoken with some conductors they have made the same statement; female members of orchestras tend to be the most aggressive facing a woman on the podium –probably bitterness or jealousy, while one would think they would rather encounter a certain feeling of pride for their gender that has been excluded from the profession for so long.

Then, there are also people who think that a conductor needs power, energy, and that women are weak and that the profession of conductor is therefore “against their nature”; they apparently would also distract man players.

One of the most recent scandals arose from a radio interview given by Bruno Mantovani, the young director of the Paris Conservatoire, repeating some of these old beliefs while trying to find reasons for the small number of female conductors. You can find a translation of this interview online –or in the Bibliography at the end, as well as articles about other personalities having talked about the subject.

Female conductors exist. But even today, the number of internationally recognized female conductors can be counted on one hand.
One could say that today, the two most prominent personalities are the Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki and American Marin Allsop.
Orchestra managers and concert programmers still fear hiring women to conduct their concerts, but without their investment it will be difficult to progress into the right direction!

Susanna Mälkki, one of the most distinguished conductors today

Before we go on...

The common factor among all the women above is that they came from musical or wealthy families who could offer private teaching for their daughters. The public music studies were the first step to open doors to women. But when coming to 20^th century, unlike instrumental studies, composition classes were still kept closed in most music schools, and the social attitude has changed very slowly.

Charles Wilfrid de Bériot's composition class in Paris Conservatoire, 1894-95

Today there is a growing number of woman composers, not to speak about instrumentalists, even if both fields are still dominated by men. Unfortunately, many women composers still experience the same fears and feelings of insecurity that Clara Schumann experienced more than a centenary ago, caused by a feeling of solitude among men and the prejudice the society has towards them.