4 November 2018
When Mark asked me to speak tonight I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to say; there have been so many things that struck me about being a woman and a musician in Cambridge. When I was researching for my MPhil, I worked primarily on female rap, exploring how female artists retained a sense of empowerment in the face of accusations of misogyny levelled at hip-hop as a genre. Musical diversity remains something I am very interested in. I want to talk about both the crucial importance of celebrating the contributions of women to musical life not just in Cambridge but across the world, and reflect on the challenges we are still facing.
Musical life in Cambridge is incredibly active. The posters all over the city advertise concert after concert, and every year numerous new ensembles are formed and perform. I remember a period in the Michaelmas of my second year where I sang a concert, service or both every day for three weeks. I can’t imagine a city where one could experience more music in terms of the hours musical people put in here, studying, watching, performing, listening, whatever you do. Accepting women has undoubtedly enriched and improved musical life here; female undergraduates now sing the upper parts for some of the best choirs in the world where they previously could not even study. Cambridge took an overdue but overwhelmingly positive step in admitting women, and we see these women impacting Christ’s every day. We must celebrate the benefits they bring – with events such as this, with concerts, with discussion – and we must continue to strive for full recognition, inclusion and representation of women in music. The training, opportunity and contribution of female musicians in this city is amazing, but in light of the unique musical richness of Cambridge, there is work to do in recognising women here in the musical world; particularly compositionally.
The music course at Cambridge is comparatively traditional to other universities in the UK and America. The essential elements of theory are provided through studying music of the classical Western canon, and although they are included, jazz, popular music and world music are employed more as developmental topics once this other musical knowledge has been grasped. Whatever the truth of that statement (many would disagree of course; I experienced the course in that way) I think a sad by-product of this structure is that I studied barely any music by women. Even in a whole course based on twentieth century composers, when women were much more active on the scene, we still mainly looked at male composers. I wouldn’t deny the academic benefits of studying lots of this music – although Professor Rowland who had to supervise my counterpoint might disagree – but I do think I missed out on a lot of music by women that deserves to have space carved out for it in an academically rigorous course, not just because it is brilliant but because striving for fair representation is important. I believe that a course where the only musical examples are composed by men can undoubtedly be expanded; it just takes a bit of slightly different research.
In a similar vein, considering the fact that you can hear multiple evensongs every day in this city, very few perform music by women on a regular basis. I think there are lots of reasons for this; often contemporary, choral music by female composers can be time-consuming to learn amid a busy term and many musical directors don’t know very much choral music by women. There is a general sense that deliberately including music by women in our academic and choral programmes here means we miss out on beautiful music by men. I think this is deeply flawed; any music student or singer will leave Cambridge with a solid working knowledge and love for a lot of music by men, but probably only a handful of music by women. It seems to me that we can afford to mix it up a bit, and it is fantastic to hear the choir tonight performing so much brilliant music by women.
I received a world-class musical education here, and without it, I wouldn’t do what I do today. Christ’s supported my singing lessons, tours with the chapel choir all over the world, recording experience and more. I met some of the most incredible women I know here; working at Cambridge Rape Crisis was a firm reminder of the reality of striving for better representation and understanding of women. Christ’s Choir alone has a particularly brilliant selection of very brilliant women; Laura Dunkling who is the current choir administrator organised and performed in several CCMS concerts of music by female composers. Claire Watters who is also in the choir has created an online database of music by women suitable for programming in liturgical services, and has been circulating this fantastic resource around chapel choir directors. At the risk of sounding nostalgic it is a very wonderful thing to be surrounded by people who help create an environment where brilliant women are heard and taken seriously, and whilst we still have work to do, people in Cambridge take a unique role in this process because of the abundance of musical activity we see here.
The choir are about to sing one of my favourite pieces, ‘Love bade me welcome’ by Judith Weir; it’s something I hugely enjoy singing and I am really looking forward to hearing it again. It’s wonderful to have come back tonight for such a positive uplifting event, and I’m looking forward to the next forty years.