Sigma Alpha Iota

Introducing Music by Women What Makes a 'Best ' Composer? By Susan Cohn Lackman, Ph.D., C M.B.A., Director, Composers Bureau hief classical music critic of The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini, inspired by endof-year "Best Of " lists, decided in early January to make up a list of "The Top 10 Greatest Composers of All Time." When he started his list he realized that most of the composers he chose were residents of Vienna at one time or another (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schönberg); J. S. Bach was on the list, too, and you can imagine the rest (what we call "the dead white guys"). There was immediate reaction, with traffic on his blog increasing to frenzied levels as responders began responding to other responders in virtual fisticuffs akin to road rage. There were calls for Penderecki and partisans for Machaut and Bartók. Others extolled Rachmaninoff while some called for Sondheim. Through it all there were demands for women composers to be given at least a nod. As a friend said, "Once you start talking about women, it becomes political." In fact, once you talk about an underrepresented group — modern composers, Black composers, Jewish composers, Chinese composers – anything but the standard Western canon — you start talking about composers whose music is little performed except under a rubric of "Music of Modern/ Women/Black/Jewish/Chinese Composers." Setting aside a special program of music by under-represented composers may seem like a good idea, drawing attention to these composers, but in reality what happens is that audiences say, "Well, I'm not a woman/Black/Jewish/Chinese person, so I won't find this concert interesting." Many of us hesitate to listen to music we know we're not going to like before we've heard it. So if you go to a concert of new music, the audience is full of friends of the composer as well as other composers and professors hoping to get their music performed. And the same goes for any special concert: Have Lang Lang play a concerto with your local orchestra, and the audience will be packed with Chinese parents and children. "Oh, yes," we say, "now that they've been to a concert they'll come back," but these special audiences rarely do. Yet we never hesitate to attend a concert of 19th-century European composers, especially since it isn't advertised as such. 20 PAN PIPES SPRING 2011 sai-national.org We do have to think about it; we have to do something about it. If a composer writes reams of music but never is performed, that composer does not exist. Mr. Tommasini chose to respond to the complaint of his omission women composers with a thoughtful essay on January 18. He started with "a sad truth" that "women have had severely limited opportunities within all the arts, especially music and, even more, composition." Part of the problem is that traditionally men have run the performing organizations as conductors and performers, and many men are biased against women composers. He pointed out that while a writer can write alone and find a publisher, a composer needs a performer and an audience. In other words, his list comprises the most famous composers whose music has lasted as audience favorites for at least 100 years, and those are all male. But how does one explain the woman pianist who gave an impassioned talk at a scholarly meeting about music by women composers who were contemporaries of Mozart, and when asked about the response from her audiences replied, "I don't program any of these pieces." When asked why, she shrugged and said that she did not have tenure yet and felt it necessary to play Beethoven and Chopin. Women in music tell horror stories about not getting performances, yet occasionally there's one of a woman who outfoxes a male conductor. The stories may be entertaining, but that won't get the job done of introducing music by women to audiences. My solution: Performers, conductors, and programmers put one piece by a woman composer on each program you present. Don't depend on the woman composer to perform it herself, either; the music is valuable to learn and present or it isn't. It can be a lengthy symphony or a set of quick bagatelles. Use the same aplomb you use when putting the music of any composer on the program — just do it! Audiences, for the most part, will not notice. Trust me: The late Pat Stenberg programmed one movement of a symphony of mine on a program she conducted in Sarasota's Van Wezel Hall, and every one of the 1766 seats was filled with a sentient being, old or young, of either gender. Pat asked me to come out and say something about the piece before it was played, and as I took the stage there were gasps of "It's a girl!" Now, my name was in the program, and the only boy I know named Susan was one in a Johnny Cash song, yet "It's a girl!" resounded with surprise. And, oh, they loved the music and were delighted that it was written by a girl. (I appreciated the description as I was well-past my Ph.D., had two children, and was far from adolescence.) Resolve now to make every fourth piece on your program a work by a woman. (And, not to skip the men who are in our Composers Bureau, find one of them, too.) Go to the SAI Website, then to Composers Bureau (one of the headings at the top), then scroll down the list of composers. To make it more fair, don't just start with A, but with the letter of your last name. Or search for a composer in your state (type the name of the state in the Search Box and see what you get). Or choose a piece your students can perform: there's everything in the list from teaching pieces to works only a virtuoso can play. Embrace the Sigma Alpha Iota Purpose: "To further the development of music in America and throughout the world." Honor the National Objectives: "Advance the music of American composers through chapter performance, new commissions, and concert attendance." Decades ago a soprano in my alumnae chapter said to a newcomer, "Oh, if you have any music I can sing, please let me see it!" She's performed my music with the love and care of a sister, before audiences big and small, in front of musicians such as Lukas Foss and Ned Rorem. At least once a year, a pianist colleague says, "I need a new piece from you," and recently she and I were invited to open a business conference BEST continued on page 22

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