Orchestras & Social
Reality: Abbie Conant’s Activism Through Music
I’ve read several notices on
the gen-mus list about the difficulties teachers sometimes have interesting
their students in gender issues. Here
is a recent example that was put on the list:
“I’m in need of suggestions
for an essay to assign tomorrow (!) which
would help undergraduate
music students grasp some of the main concepts of musical meaning as
constructed and grounded in social reality.
We have to get past this hurdle before more specifics of gender and
sexuality can be addressed effectively.”
That’s a well stated and
terribly difficult problem. I’m not
certain I have understood specfically what she needs, but I want to
provide some material “grounded in social reality” that might inspire interest
in gender related issues in music, and ultimately, in musical meaning.
This material consists of
concrete illustrations, exercises, and questions, to
accompany an article that
will appear in the February issue of the IAWM Jouranl
about trombonist Abbie
Conant and her experiences with egregious discrimination
in a major European
orchestra. (I list a web address where
the article can now
be obtained.) My post is in four parts:
I. Part one explains why the material in these document is useful
for young
performers, and why it is
aimed at them.
II. Part two lists specific
actions Abbie Conant took during her struggle, and
how she fought back with her
art. They are footsteps on a path that
hint to
young performers how gender related issues can help them find
a role and
identity as an artist in
society.
III. Part three lists specifc “actions”
performers can do to address discrimination. They are examples young people can readily
grasp.
IV. Part four lists a constellation of
gender-related questions that young
performers must consider
before they can carry through those “actions”.
These
questions could lead to much
more abstract considerations about
gender in music.
Some might be subjects for
discussion and essays. All three sections could be used to help relate gender
issues and “musical meaning” to “social reality”, as was requested.
Part I: The material I provide might be useful
because in most music schools
the majority of the students
are performers. Student performers are very
goal
oriented by the nature of
their field, and are also oriented to learning by
imitation. It is their habit of mind, at least at
first, not to deal in
abstractions, but rather to
walk in their teachers’ footsteps. Perhaps if students were given a concrete
example of how an established performer has experienced egregious
discrimination, and how she literally “fought back with her art”, they might be
able to identify with that person as a role model. Her experiences would make the issues of gender real and relevant
to them. They could see that terrible
biases really do exist in the professional music world, and how training in
gender issues can help them prepare for the problems and questions that can
arise.
The young performer’s first
question is, “How does gender affect my profession, and what can I do about
it?” The experiences of Abbie Conant might help answer that question. She spent 13 years resisting extreme
discrimination in the Munich Philharmonic.
She won an audition as principal trombone, and was later demoted by
General Music Director Sergiu Celibidache with the explanation, “You know the
problem, we need a man for the principal trombone.”
Because she fought so
determinedly, her long struggle is one of the more
incredible and well documented
examples of discrimination in the business.
The
IAWM
“Journal” article about them should arrive shortly, and is available on
this site.
A more detailed report
substantiated with 89 footnotes available on this site see:
“You Sound Like A Ladies’ Orchestra”
With these documents you can
present Abbie Conant’s astounding story to the
students. If you add the material I recently put on
the gen-mus list about the
Vienna Philharmonic, an orchestra
which categorically forbids membership to
women, and present the
staggering examples of how Prof. Hans Pizka and Lorin
Maazel defend this
discrimination, the students will be confronted with something very real. I think they will be the ones who
start asking questions about gender
bias in music.
This could be a starting
point that leads the more imaginitive students to a wider interest in gender
related issues in music. And once young
people see that there really is a problem, and one that really hurts people,
they naturally want to know what they can do, and what our music really is.
Part II. Here are nine substantial “actions” that
illustrate how Abbie Conant has reacted to
“social realities” in music.
They show how gender bias in music can affect a performer, and how she
has responded. And they are actions
that performance students might readily identify with.
1. Through the court cases
to defend her position—all of which she won—she
established a clear and
detailed documentation of sexism in the Munich
Philharmonic. Her story has thus become well-known in
Germany and to a wide
international public. A 90 minute documentary film about her
experiences was
broadcast nationally on
German television. There have been
feature articles in
numerous international
publications including “The Washington Post”, “The Wall
Street Journal”, and “Der
Spiegel” (which is equivalent to the “Time Magazine”
of Germany). She was featured in a 20 minute interview on
NPR’s “Performamce
Today”, and in a 90 minute
portrait by the Southwest German State Radio.
Her
experiences have been the
cover stories for three professional publications:
“The International Trombone
Association Journal”; “The Trombonist”, of the
British Trombone Society,
and “Frau und Musik”, of the Internationaler
Arbeitskreis Frau und
Musik. The newspaper and magazine
articles are too
numerous to list. Reports of
her experiences have had a profound impact on the
music world.
2. In Germany there are no sanctions to enforce the laws against discrimination.
They say, in effect, that it is against the law to discriminate, but if
you do you won’t be punished. The
documentary film examines this problem, and helps German politicians call for
sanctions to enforce the laws protecting women in the workplace.
3. Conant’s presence in the orchestra and her work as a soloist are
a role
model for young women in
Germany. She was the only woman brass
player in a
principal position in a
major German Orchestra. Now there are
none. There are
only two in the States. But as a soloist she is even more in the
public eye.
4. She is the first woman professor of trombone in the history of
Germany.
Only 3% of the professors in
Germany are women. (In all fields taken
together,
not just music.) Most
university students here never have a woman professor.
Her presence encourages
women students, and especially those studying brass
instruments. After she began work at the conservatory in
Trossingen,
Germany in 1992, they
accepted a woman trumpet student for the first time in the
history of the school. She has what in North America would probably
be named an artist-in-residence position.
She is free to tour extensively, and it pays
better than the Munich
Philharmonic. And there are only two
trombonists who are
women with full time
university positions in the United States.
5. She performs a highly acclaimed one woman music theater work
based on her
experiences entitled
“Miriam”, which she has taken throughout Germany, and which
by the end of this season she
will have taken to 35 US-American cities.
In
workshops following these
performances she speaks to students about
discrimination and her
experiences in Munich. These schools
have included, or
will include The Juilliard
School, The Eastman School of Music, Indiana
University, Yale University,
North Texas State University, The University of
Iowa, The University of
Southern California, The San Francisco Conservatory, and (tentatively) Stanford
University. Countless young musicians
around the world have been affected by her performances, workshops and
discussions about discrimination.
Professionals have also been
influenced. For example, Sylvia
Alimena, who is
conductor of the Eclipse
Chamber Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and a section
horn player with the
National Symphony, was quoted in a feature about Abbie in
the “Washington Post”:
“ ‘You can not imagine the
power of this piece (“Miriam”) unless you were there
in the room,’ Alimena
says. ‘All those professional women,
just shaken to their
cores by this piece. Of course it resonates particularly with
other players,
because - believe it - the
kind of treatment Abbie went through in Munich is
not, by any stretch of the
imagination, unknown in the United States.’”
Many other well-known
musicians can also testify to its effect.
6. Conant has become a noted voice in the “International Trombone
Association”, which includes
over 4000 members worldwide. She is
regularly featured as a soloist on its international festivals. She was elected to the board of directors by
the ITA membership and has been nominated for election as its President. In part through her influence the ITA
Festivals regularly include internationally recognized women trombonists and
teachers.
7. Here in Germany she often performs benefit concerts for women’s
cultural
houses, and battered women’s
shelters.
8. She has made an internationally recognized CD of trombone and
organ music
which influences people in
Germany and abroad, and a second CD is under
preparation.
9. She is an active supporter of the International Women’s Brass
Confererence,
and The International
Alliance of Women in Music.
Part III: Based on Abbie’s efforts here are some ways
performers become
involved with gender issues
in music. They represent a wide range
of
possibilities, from what
students can do now, to goals they can set as
professionals:
1. You can publicize and discuss examples of discrimination
internationally,
especially on the net. Awareness brings change. (Study the Internet work of
Irene Stuber.)
2. You can learn about the situation of women in various countries
and work
with them to make change,
especially in orchestras, since that is your field of
expertise, and since the
international music world is very interconnected.
3. You can encourage your instrument’s professional societies to
include women
in their festivals, to
address discrimination in their journals, and to include
women in the executive
positions.
4. You can teach and study
internationally and speak about and represent the
ideals of equal opportunity
for women.
5. You can perform works by and about women to strengthen their
rights and
respect at home and abroad.
6. If you are a woman performer you can accentuate your professional
status as
a role model for all women
on this planet.
7. You can perform and/or organize benefit concerts for women’s
organizations
at home and abroad.
8. You can make recordings that show internationally the level of
music women
can make.
9. You can join and support societies for women in music.
10. You can write a letter of protest to the
orchestra chairmen (Orchester
Vorstand) of the Vienna
Philharmonic at:
Orchester Vorstand
Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra
1010 Wien
Austria
(It is the orchestra and
it’s chairmen who are responsible, not the administration, but you should send
a copy of your letter to the administration at the same address.)
Part IV. Through Abbie’s efforts and the above
examples students see
how gender issues can be
applied to their own careers. Here are
some gender-related
questions that young
performers must consider if they become involved in
similiar experiences or
activities. These questions could lead
to much more
abstract considerations about
gender in music and musical meaning.
Some might
be subjects for discussion
and essays. The list could be greatly
expanded with
the student’s own questions,
and your special area of focus.
1. Are Abbie’s experiences unique?
Could something like that happen
to you, or someone you
know? What causes them to happen? What factors can prevent them?
2. Are you being taught how to research the issues concerning women
in the
music business, and apply
that knowledge when you enter the profession?
There
is a dicrimination suit now
going on in a major American orchestra every bit as
unbelievable as
Abbie’s. If that happens to you are you
going to be prepared?
Can you wait until then to
start becoming informed? How can you
avoid problems? Three men in
prominant US orchestras have recently lost or left their jobs due to sexist
behavior. Do you know about these
examples? Are you being taught
professional decorum? What is necessary
so that women can have children and play in orchestras?
3. Do your professional societies have a fair representation of
women in their
festivals and executive
positions? How can you help them
to? Do they address
discrimination or other
women’s issues in their journals? If
not, why not? What training do you need
to write such an article? Would you
have something intelligent to say on a panel discussion about women in
music? What topic would
you address and what would
you say?
4. How would you teach or study internationally and represent the
ideals of
equal opportunity for women
in an effective way?
5. Do you perform works by and about women to strengthen their
rights and
respect at home and
internationally? What are such
works? Where can you find
them? How would you write a music theater work
dealing with the identity of
women in society?
6. What can a woman do to accentuate her professional image and
status as a
role model for all women on
this planet? Which women might serve as
models for
developing such an
image? What are those characteristics?
7. Can you make recordings that show internationally the level of
music women
can make? Who has in your field? How well do you know those recordings? What is that woman’s history?
8. Have you joined or supported women’s music societies? What do those
societies really accomplish?
9. What would you say in a letter of protest to the orchestra
chairmen
(Orchester Vorstand) of the
Vienna Philharmonic that might have an effect?
Their address:
Orchester Vorstand
Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra
1010 Wien
Austria
(It is the
orchestra and it’s chairmen who are responsible, not the administration, but
you should send a copy of your letter to the administration at the same
address.)
Students like to know how
knowledge is applicable, and what it can do for them.
When you show them, they put
you to work. The discussion could lead
to more
abstract considerations
about gender in music, and musical meaning.
Perhaps
these concrete examples will
help young performers see how gender issues in
music can be used to better
understand their role and identity as an artist in
society, and lead them to
question what music really is.
You are welcome to this
material and can forward it to whomever you wish. I
will put it on the IAWM list,
and the Women in Music list. Soon I
will no
longer be able to
participate actively in the list discussions.
I hope your
reaction to the VPO material I posted
will not be described as “flurry &
forget”, but rather that you
will become involved in publication, and long term
social action and
research. Perhaps you can formulate
ideas on how
to structure a “movement”
and put them on the list. There are so
many women musicians being deeply hurt in orchestras. Some have written to me and said that assistance would be very
helpful.
William Osborne