Female Representation in the Performing Arts

The issue of female representation in the performing arts has been spotlighted by several media sources in the last year – The Stage (the world’s longest running theatre publication) has, in the last few months, published articles which investigate the lack of female directors in Musical Theatre and the strategies being used to redress the balance.

One report highlights information released by the Musicians Union which showed that there were no female musical directors leading pit orchestras in the West End (previous reports also showed that 90% of musicians in the orchestras were men).

The library has a subscription to The Stage and you can find the latest issue in the Print Journal section.

The Guardian have been looking at the under-representation of female composers in concert line-ups. Figures that were compiled by the Donne – Women in Music project and Drama Musica show that 95% of concerts worldwide have music composed solely by men. These figures were taken from the 2018-19 programmes of 15 large orchestras across the world. Campaigners are arguing against those who claim that a male-dominated canon is inescapable.

Classic FM have also written about the absence of female composers in last year’s best score category at the Oscars - even in the shortlist of 141 scores, only five were by female composers.

Is anything changing?

In this short video from 2017, BBC Stories document the careers of Ruth Brill and Arielle Smith, two female choreographers who have paved the way for women to take leading roles in the performing arts.

The Stage have featured more positive reports of women playwrights who have recently received increased exposure in the West End. They have also credited the Royal Court for an increasingly diverse programme which has featured many more female writers and directors. In November, the RCS staged Troilus and Cressida, their first full-length Shakespeare play with a gender-balanced cast – music by Evelyn Glennie explored and challenged gender conventions within the play.

As a reaction to the current climate of empowerment and equality for women, Glasgow Citizens Theatre has announced a season of work for 2019 showcasing female writers and women working across Scotland. The productions will be directed by women and outreach work will also focus on women in the arts. More information about what is included in the season can be found here: https://www.citz.co.uk/

Within the library we have many female playwrights including Frances Poet, Cora Bissett, Liz Lochhead and also collections such as Contemporary Women Playwrights Into the 21st Century.

The soprano Gabriella Di Laccio has created a website called the Donne project as a space dedicated to female composers both historical and contemporary. The Strad has also reported that the BBC Proms are among more than 100 international festivals that have signed up to the PRS Foundation’s ‘Keychange’ pledge to achieve a 50:50 gender balance by 2022. They have also reported on other initiatives aimed redressing the balance.

You can read issues of The Strad in the library in the Print Journals section. The library also has books which critique the music canon such as De-canonizing music history and Gender and the musical canon.

Sun, Summer, Sparkling Opportunities for Musicians

From time to time we share details of courses and competitions that have arrived in our inbox.  Today, there's a whole summer magazine supplement full of summer schools for musicians.  RCS students, if you haven't tired of school by the end of June, then maybe you're up for further challenges further afield?

Classical Music Magazine's Summer Schools 2019 is in stock at the Whittaker Library now. We have two copies, so borrow one over the weekend and see what appeals to you!

Archives and Collections – Object of the Month

March 2019

This month the Whittaker Library is celebrating Women’s History with a display of books and other materials. You may have spotted inspirational quotes from trailblazing women around the walls of the Library. The Archives and Collections Object of the Month ties in with this theme:

The Glasgow Athenaeum: Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Directors for the Year Ending 31st August, 1892 List of Professors, including Professor Emma Ritter-Bondy

Emma Ritter-Bondy was born in 1838 in Austria. A graduate of the Vienna Conservatoire, Ritter-Bondy later moved to Glasgow. In 1892, The Glasgow Athenaeum (now RCS) made her Professor of Piano. This means that Ritter-Bondy was the first woman to be made a Professor in a Higher Education Institution in the United Kingdom.  This pamphlet, attached to the handwritten book of minutes, shows a list of the names of Professors in the Athenaeum School of Music in 1892, including “Madame Ritter-Bondy”:

Professor Emma Ritter-Bondy: a trailblazing woman and one of our own!

Click below to read a BBC news article on the subject:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39191297

Highlight on James Graham (Playwright)

 

James Graham is a British playwright and screenwriter. His work has been staged throughout the UK and internationally, at theatres including the Bush, Soho Theatre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru and the National Theatre.

Graham grew up in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and was educated at University of Hull, where he studied drama.

Graham's first professional play Albert's Boy was produced by the Finborough Theatre in London, where Graham became playwright-in-residence. His first major play This House was commissioned by the Royal National Theatre, where it was critically and commercially acclaimed, transferred to the larger Olivier Theatre, and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Play.

In 2018 Graham won his first Olivier Award, for Labour of Love as best new comedy (his other play Ink was nominated for an Olivier in the same year).  He wrote the book for the Broadway musical Finding Neverland, and two of his own plays, Ink and Privacy, transferred to Broadway.

Graham's debut feature film X+Y premiered in 2015, and he has written numerous TV dramas, including the TV films Coalition (which won the Royal Television Society award for Best Single Film) and Brexit: The Uncivil War. Brexit: The Uncivil War aired on Channel 4 on 7 January 2019.

His plays are published by Methuen and we have every published play as part of the Whittaker collection at 822.92 GRA.

In January 2019, Graham's life and work was the subject of an in-depth BBC One documentary as part of the Imagine series. Check out this documentary on one of the UK most interesting young playwrights.

Maybe something form his body of work would make a good audition monologue or a duologue for showcase? "He's so hot right now"!

 

Click Here to Visit BBC I-player and Imagine

 

Click here to visit James Graham's agent's Website Curtis Brown

Women's History Month: Starring in our E-Resources ....

 
Since March 2019 is Women's History Month, we took a look to see who we could find represented in our electronic resources.  The only difficulty was in picking whom to include in this blogpost!

Alexander Street Press have many different female composers and musicians; visit the Jazz Database, or Classical Music Scores to find these famous names:-
 

 

 
 
DIGITAL THEATRE PLUS has many productions and interviews.  Below is a sample of what you can watch!
 

• On Costume Cutting (Michal Shyne)
• Practitioners on Practice: on Stage Management, an interview with Ali Wade 
• A Blues for Nia (Chino Odemba)
• Brown Widow (Leah Chillery)
• Shakespeare's Women Today: Harriet Walter in conversation with Carol Rutter
• Talking about Plays: London Road, an interview with Alecky Blythe
• From Stage to Screen: a Lecture given by Phyllida Lloyd with Fiona Shaw
• Practitioners on Practice ... on Costume Design, an interview with Katrina Lindsay

And there's more!  Drama Online have a whole section on feminist theatre, whilst  Medici TV have documentaries, master classes, interviews and performances of female composers and performers. 

All these are available to RCS staff and students, via the Library website or by searching Catalogue Plus. Staff are happy to help if you have any difficulty finding resources to suit your interests.

Embrace Women's History Month! Awesome, Inspirational Feminist Texts to Challenge You

Carrier Bags and Feminist Citation Theory

 

As it's Women's History Month, we're sharing a couple of academic related feminist texts  that one of our library colleagues has found really influential in his academic pursuits.

 

Ursula K Le Guin: Image from Wikipedia

First comes Ursual K Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Are you tired of the same old stories - Western, patriarchal hero-quests, which start at the beginning and work towards a nice, tidy conclusion? Science fiction writer and feminist academic Ursula K. Le Guin will address your frustrations.

This essay proposes an alternative way of telling stories and experiencing the world -  a cyclical, heterogeneous approach. This alternative works to subvert a male-centric, linear mode which takes its cue from the violent, goal-driven philosophy of a predatory hunter (no thanks!). The carrier bag theory shows us how we might create from a feminist point of view which values collecting different experiences and stories, moving backwards and forwards in time, and not necessarily shooting the bear with the arrow. Whether you are writing music, directing a film, or planning your next performance, this essay might change your whole perspective!



Sarah Ahmed - image from TheOtherMcCain.com

And here is Making Feminist Points, by Sara Ahmed, dealing with feminist citation theory. 

In Making Feminist Points, Sara Ahmed reflects on her own experiences in order to critique the prevalence of male writers in academic citation and the bias towards male theorists in academia. Her website features a variety of thought-provoking posts on feminist issues in academic institutions, including a striking analysis of the use of ‘diversity’ as a smokescreen to distract from institutional racism.


 

St David's Day Songs - Sentimental, Powerful, Here in the Library Today

 

 



Okay, we may be in Scotland - but hey, we're all Celts together, so let's celebrate St David's Day. We have lots of Welsh songs here in the Whittaker Library.  Here's a tip - if you search for:-

 

Welsh Song*

 

then you get books with "Welsh song" AND "Welsh songs" in the title. Quite a lot of them, as you'll see here!

• Search the catalogue for yourself here.

Twittaker is happy to celebrate St David's Day whilst other things are going on around him in the library - it's changeover day today, and our library colleagues will be taking down our February featured displays.  

February was the Month of Love, centred round Valentines Day.  Watch this space, then you'll see what March's theme is!  All will soon be revealed ...