“Hi Susie I am preparing a Talk on UK the Position of Women in Music 1900-2025. Most is based on statistical research, but I thought a few observations by individual women in the profession, today, might be interesting additions. Do you, or have you ever experienced (or know of others who have experienced...) discrimination or professional difficulties on account of gender? Any thoughts would be appreciated. I will not be referencing contributors by name. I hope you don't mind me asking?
My response
I have a few instants in my career where I feel that I was definitely held back because I was a woman. When I started at the Royal College of Music I went in as a joint first study composer and singer but near the end of my studies I was hauled into the principal's office and he said that I would have to make a decision between composing and singing and that in his opinion I would be better off becoming a singer because he didn't believe that a woman could make a career as a composer at that time. This was in the early 1980's. So, this led me to pursue a career as an opera singer even though I really wanted to be a composer. It's not such a terrible story, in the sense that I had a great singing career and I also did a lot of composing out on my job's abroad. So, in many respects it was the perfect combination for a composer.
When I made my career shift 11 years ago to full-time composer, I sang my Swan Songs at Luxembourg and Lyon operas and sold out my small pension from the Royal Opera House to fund an MPhil in composition at Cambridge University. So, I went in as a mature composer and I was delighted to find that the faculty, although still dominated by male composers was very empowering. I subsequently went on to get a scholarship to study for a PhD in composition at the Royal Birmingham conservatoire and again I felt well supported by my male supervisors and I was also lucky to have Errollyn Wallen as one of my supervisors.
Going back to Cambridge. I entered the conducting competition and this is perhaps is the most egregious experience of sexism I had in 2014. I prepared my work well for the competition and made it into the semi-finals where the adjudicator said two things which were highly disturbing:
The first was "you conduct quite well for a ....." and then he stopped.
The other was" I don't like it that you are so tall as a conductor "
Both these comments struck me as highly sexist and discouraging. Even my fabulous conducting coach, a top international conductor who took the greatest care to teach me all the techniques of conducting so that I am now pretty good, finished by saying "of course you won't get anywhere because you're a woman and nobody will respect you. " The comment left me with a feeling of doom as I entered my first rehearsal. But I learned from another conductor a new way of working with orchestras which is less dominating and more as a colleague and this has served me well.
So, these are examples of things that really were very discouraging to me as a woman composer and conductor. Now, I generally feel well supported. However, I have noticed that in terms of getting on in the serious world of contemporary composition there still seems to be a bias towards young male composers and if women get a chance, it is often younger women in a marginalized form of composition such as song writing or soundscape design. This bias was particularly reflected in choices at the recent Ivor awards last autumn. I sense for example that at Cambridge where I composed quite muscular music that it was deemed too strong meat coming out of a woman and I noticed that the women composers that we're championed at the Cambridge Faculty tended to compose softer not such challenging music. I've also noticed that women composers in general put on a persona of great pleasantness which seems in stark contrast to a male composer such as Thomas Ades for example who speaks more definitively. So, I feel still under duress to have to be an overly pleasant person when really, I just want to be a composer. As far as my life as a composer now, I think in many respects it is very similar to many of my male colleagues of course Michael my husband being one of them. It's tough being a composer. But I am very happy to say that I am making headway. I have two publishers: Composers Edition and I've just been taken on by Universal Edition. I've managed through my own effort particularly to put on big choral works but I've also had some modest commissions and I'm making quite a big breakthrough at the moment in terms of opera composing but I can't say any more about that yet.
Last week I was in Barcelona at the Opera Europa conference and I was talking to a top agent who has taken an interest in my career and he said "this really now is your time to shine " well, I hope it is. But I still feel I would like as a mature woman composer to be able to present myself as a real person dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a sweater, that I wouldn't have to feel under duress to glamorise myself. I feel in contrast that a male composer can still be very much himself like Mark Anthony Turnage.