Music: Fighting the gender inequality in classical music

Stuart MacRae is troubled by the gender imbalance in classical music

Hardly a day has gone by this summer when the issue of gender balance has been absent from media debate. Fired up by the pay differentials between the BBC’s male and female stars, subsequent offshoot stories have shown women to be winning in some areas, but mainly losing out to men.

The classical music industry is no exception. According to one newspaper report last weekend, there are more women in promoted orchestral posts than men. But when it comes to the big bucks to be made as conductors, women are still a horrifyingly significant minority. Just look at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival opera and orchestral programme: male conductors – 21; female conductors – nil.

The picture regarding composers is little better. Looking at every aspect of this year’s International Festival music programme, including the Queens’ Hall chamber recital series and classical input to the Contemporary Music section, the only women we find among centuries’ worth of male creatives are Clara Schumann, Anoushka Shankar and Sally Beamish.

One of Scotland’s leading male composers, Stuart MacRae, is troubled by the gender imbalance among upcoming composers. Sure, the past 50 years have seen significant successes for women worldwide, with the likes of Judith Weir, Unsuk Chin, and more recently Helen Grime and Anna Meredith hitting the big time. But there is, says MacRae, either a dearth of young women composers, or a reluctance by them to put themselves forward.

His claim arises from the response to a call by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for emerging UK composers to apply for its prestigious Composers’ Hub initiative. This is the third such annual project, with up to five places available. Each composer selected will be given the opportunity to write for orchestra in a range of different contexts, to develop their compositional skills and to learn more about how the business of such a major arts organisation operates.

Age is not an issue. The only stipulation is that the emerging composers should be at the early stages in their development where such invaluable experience will benefit them most.

It’s an opportunity that any would-be composer would give his or her eye teeth for. What better practical environment to hone their skills than to have access to top professional players, in a variety of groupings and contexts, as your own musical toy box? It’s the ultimate interactive compositional learning tool.

Add to that the ultimate prize: each of the five will also be expected to write a ten-minute work for full orchestra, one of which will be selected to be performed by the RSNO during its 2018/19 season. After last year’s Hub, Daniel Kidane’s Zulu was chosen, and will be premiered in November as part of the upcoming RSNO season.

MacRae is delighted with the success of the initiative so far, and the quality of participants it has attracted, but he remains frustrated about the severe gender imbalance. “It’s worth noting that over the past two years we have had over 70 applications, but only about 15 from women. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but it’s certainly worth knowing about, thinking about, and attempting to resolve,” he says.

He knows only too well how much of a career breakthrough such hands-on orchestral experience can provide. Just when he needed it in his own career, MacRae was lucky enough to secure an “apprentice” association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, which was the professional springboard he needed. So why, he asks, are women composers not champing at the bit for a similar opportunity such as that being offered now by the RSNO?

As a teacher of composition in the higher education sector, MacRae is puzzled by the fact that the abundance of women studying composition in universities and colleges is not translating into higher numbers in the profession. “I’ve taught where the majority of students were women, and others where the majority were men,” he observes. “So, there are actually more women studying composition these days at that level, but I’m not quite sure where they go after that. Why is it that only one in five of the applicants for the RSNO initiative have been women?”

His message to them is simple: don’t be backward in coming forward. “If there are any female composers out there who maybe applied for this before and didn’t get through, have a punt on it again next time, because – I know as a male composer – you have to persevere and not give up.

“I have a hunch that men are persevering more and pushing themselves forward for opportunities in music. This needs to be addressed. We need young and emerging female composers to speak for themselves, stand up and get their stuff out there.”

A week short of yesterday’s RSNO Composers’ Hub submission deadline, the news was grim: out of 46 applications thus far, only seven were women. What’s more, men who had tried before were having another go. No sign of previous female applicants doing the same. ■