In celebration of the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand, NZTrio presents a concert of music by female composers.
Victoria Kelly, a staunch advocate for a stronger female presence in the music industry, is one of those women.
Victoria Kelly Photo: Te Ara / Public Domain
Kelly recently held an all-female music workshop (SongHubs Sphere), involving international songwriters working with local artists, as part of her work with APRA (Australasian Performing Rights Association) and says the response was overwhelming.
“Most female artists have spent their entire lives being either the only, or one of the few, women in the room, in studio environments and on stage, where men occupy most of the jobs … so to be in the complete majority and to be working with female engineers and producers and technicians was an overwhelming experience, unlike anything I’ve ever had.”
Clockwise from top left : Gillian Whitehead, Celeste Oram, Claire Cowan, Eve de Castro-Robinson, Salina Fisher, Leonie Holmes Photo: Supplied
She says the membership of APRA, which represents songwriters and composers, shows the situation clearly.
“Only 23% of its members are women, but when you look at sound engineers and music producers the figures are more like 3 or 4%, so for aspiring female technicians and producers this was an empowering and profound experience.”
She’s hoping that by readdressing the imbalance, over time there will be a change in representation.
Ariana Tikao, a performer and composer of music in Te Reo Māori and English Photo: supplied
However Victoria Kelly does not support positive discrimination to allow more music by women heard.
“Any kind of discrimination is problematic; we’re starting in an imbalanced situation but what you are always looking for is balance, you’re not wanting to exchange one type of discrimination for another. “
“Initiatives that empower women because they’re women, not because they’re great musicians, is the last thing anyone wants.”
“The point is not to elevate any artist who is not worthy but in an imbalanced landscape where people are actually shut out, it means that really great people don’t have an opportunity to have their voices heard, and nobody should be prevented from having their voice heard by gender, by ethnicity by any standard other than the quality of their music.”
Victoria Kelly poses with her award at the Silver Scrolls Photo RNZ Diego Opatowski Photo: RNZ/Diego Opatowski
Globally the percentage of music written by women that is performed in classical concerts is just 5% but Victoria hopes in New Zealand the numbers are different.
“There is a brilliant group of women composing music here and we do have a good representation of strong female composers of contemporary, popular and classical music of all kinds.
“We’ve got some kick-arse women here.”
Moana and the Moa Hunters Photo: Courtesy of AudioCulture
But she says you have to be a really strong woman to succeed in the music industry where there is less room for the gentle less aggressive creative types.
125 years on Kelly thinks it is important to remember the suffrage movement.
“I don’t think the suffragettes would recognise this society in many respects but I think they’d be quite disappointed to see how entrenched imbalances remain.”
She’s very concerned about the characterization of women in the music industry as “decorative which strips away any attention you might pay to the quality of their mind.”
But she believes it’s the work of more than one generation to change those entrenched attitudes from the major commercial players in the industry.
She is heartened by NZTrio programming a concert of music by female composers but she hopes audiences will not listen to music by women, but just listen to music.
NZTrio Braid concert with Ben Baker, Ashely Brown, Stephen De Pledge Photo: Supplied
"Today there’s a rich community of female composers creating music in New Zealand but in the time of Clara Schuman and Fanny Mendelssohn, I can’t even imagine how many female composers there were composing music at that time, who have been rendered invisible by history.
Clara Schumann Photo: Public Domain
“It makes me sad to think of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of music composed by women… that will simply never ever be heard because the way that society was organised meant that was not an option for [women] to be composing”.
