Week 6: Developing inclusive practices
Introduction
In Week 1 you learned that research completed by Donne Women in Music [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] in 2024 found that 92.5 per cent of orchestral repertoire performed worldwide in the 2023/24 concert season was written by men, while music written by women made up just 7.5 per cent. (Donne Women in Music’s research was based upon an examination of the repertoire presented by 111 orchestras based across 30 countries.) Of this 7.5 per cent, 5.8 per cent was composed by white women, while music written by women from the global majority made up just 1.6 per cent of all orchestral music performed. These figures highlight that gender is not the only important factor to bear in mind when seeking to diversify programming, as composers have also been excluded from the performing canon along the lines of race, ethnicity, class, disability and/or neurodiversity, religion, and sexuality/sexual identity.
This week, you will start to consider how you might begin to diversify your programming beyond gender and how you can promote inclusive practices more broadly. You will also hear from Deborah Keyser discussing her work fostering inclusive practices as Director of Tŷ Cerdd/ Music Centre Wales.
By the end of this week, you should be able to:
- have an understanding of the concept of intersectionality and how it has affected marginalisation within classical music programming
- think about how you can start to diversify your programming beyond gender, and what resources are available to help you
- have an awareness of how you can ensure equity of opportunity for those seeking to work within the classical music industry.