Transcript
Ethel SMYTH: March of the Women
Shoulder to shoulder, and friend to friend. I stand here today, remembering these words in Ethel Smyth's 'March of the Women', a stirring suffrage anthem, which I sang at the first 'Composing Women's Festival' in Wellington in 1993, celebrating the suffrage centenary here. Thanks to Elizabeth Kerr, Diana Marsh and others, we enjoyed a rich smorgasbord of music by women, from Dorothy Buchanan's powerful 'The Clio Legacy' to the wacky and wondrous Janet Roddick and the Brainchilds. As I stood amongst the other female singers under the baton of Odaline de la Martinez, I felt the same surge of pride as I did hearing the female choir perform it at a recent Karlheinz Company concert in Auckland which I directed.
I've titled this talk Wide Blows our Banner, from the text by Cicely Hamilton to Smyth's March, because, unfortunately, we still need to fly this banner, high.
More on why later.
But let's honour the birthday boy. On this very day, 103 years ago, Douglas Gordon Lilburn was born in a Mrs Tripe's Nursing Home in Whanganui. Twenty-three years before that my grandfather Denis Duigan was also born in that town. His father James had been the first editor of the Whanganui Herald.
A giant leap forwards to the early seventies, and Lilburn (with David Farquhar) presented the idea of a NZ archive to the Alexander Turnbull Library - and we come full circle to today. As we sit in this splendid new auditorium, we think of all those who have paved the way for us.
My first meeting with Douglas Lilburn was on the steps of St Andrews on the Terrace, way back in the '80s. He stood, spectacles partially obscured behind cigarette smoke, and as no comment was volunteered, I proffered "Douglas Lilburn, I presume?", not one of my better lines. After introducing myself, he said "Ah yes, I heard your piece - a bit too intellectual for me", with a slightly smug, was it a sour edge to his tone? I've never forgotten this, despite decades of deeply appreciating both his music and his multifarious contributions to NZ music.
We had much in common, Douglas and I. New Zealand composers with Scottish forebears, shy by nature, Scorpios, Dupuytrens contracture sufferers, with heightened sibilance in our voices. But he was male, I am female, born 40 odd years later.
In his biography of the composer, Philip Norman describes the often odious intractability of the 'friendships' between Lilburn, John Thomson, Edwin Carr, Ashley Heenan, names that would mean little if anything to the current cohort of composers. I met all of them, and I think they hung, for me, like a hazy patriarchical stratus cloud over my early years in composition.
Ashley Heenan once bellowed across a room at me, at a Music Foundation meeting, "You've put on weight!"
Ted Carr wrote me an excoriating letter after the premiere of my 'Triple Clarinet Concerto' in 1992, a gift he bestowed on many contemporaries, following the first performances of their works.
Lilburn himself would write at the bottom of some of his letters, "No reply necessary". Passive-aggression?
Is this whiff of old boys' network, toxic masculinity before its time? Is it still around?
Yes it sure is, certainly in business, in politics, definitely in the law, and in institutions - universities oh yes, but, much less so I think in composerly circles themselves. We tend to stick together, and support each other, knowing that we're all in the same position. We're competitive of course, it's a creatively perilous business, and we're up for the same commissions and jobs from the same musicians and organisations. It's a tough living, and we all know it.
But is it tougher for women composers? Damn right it is.
Let us, for a while, look at some early female figures in composition…and to hark back to the very earliest, here is an astonishing image.
Egyptian composer image
It's the earliest known depiction of a female composer, dating from two and a half thousand years BC. She holds her left hand cupped to her ear, fingers alert, and her right hand gestures toward to the harpist. Could it be that she's hearing her own work rehearsed, performed? Her own first hearing of a composition? A precious moment. Ancient Egypt famously had enlightened attitudes to women's work and status. And we see it first here.
Not so much for Ethel Smyth, later Dame Ethel, the English composer, writer and indefatigable feminist campaigner, who, despite her father's disapproval, set her heart on a career as a professional composer. Although she was encouraged by both Brahms and Dvorak, she was well privy to the prevailing inbuilt male privilege of the times.
In her Female Pipings in Eden, Smyth quotes:
"One afternoon while Adam was asleep, Eve, anticipating the great god Pan, bored some holes in a hollow reed and began to what I called 'pick out a tune'. Thereupon Adam spoke: 'Stop that horrible noise', he roared, adding after a pause, 'Besides which, if anyone's going to make it, it's not you but me'.
What about Aotearoa? A few years before 'March of the Women', our very own Te Rangi Pai, Gisborne singer and songwriter, penned one of the best-loved tunes in this country, 'Hine e Hine', of 1907.
Te Rangi PAI: Hine e hine
'Hine e Hin'e is a gentle lullaby. Fannie Rose Howie who performed under the stage name of Princess Te Rangi Pai showed talent in singing early on, and after marrying, undertook study in Australia and England. Her rich alto and stage charisma lead to a significant recital career in England. Apparently some musicians didn't find her easy to work with. According to an accompanist, she was 'very emotional, temperamental, to some extent unpredictable'.
Hah, she was the eldest of nine children from the East Coast, a professional singer dealing with the Brits - I would have liked to meet this strong wahine!
'Hine' became the most familiar Maori song in NZ when TV2 used it for their channel's closing down song through the 80s.
In fact several New Zealand composers used or referred to this piece in works with the same title, and Victoria Kelly took inspiration from it in her sonorous 2004 piano work 'Goodnight Kiwi', commissioned by Stephen De Pledge.
Victoria KELLY: Goodnight Kiwi
Let's jump a few years on from Te Rangi Pai, and pay tribute to a wonderful, unsung New Zealand songwriter, born in 1921, Willow Macky. I met her briefly when I was a student, it must have been at a CANZ (Composers Association) AGM. She was memorable, a pretty, vivacious woman, spry and smiley. I so wish I'd got to know her better. A prolific writer of over 100 songs as well as dozens of lyrics, she's probably best known for her Christmas carol 'Te Harinui', but listen to her haunting 'Better than War', in which her own lyrics provide a bittersweet commentary on dark times. It's from a period of anti-war songs she penned in the 1960s.
At one stage we hear a commentary of male voices, even the voice of a younger Queen Elizabeth II, like a piece of musique concrète. How poignant is Willow's delicate voice, the only recording of her singing.
Willow MACKY: Better Than War
As to my own musical path as a female composer, I had no hesitation about my chosen area, once I'd chosen it, that is.
I'd grown up in a musical household, Mum always played the piano, from old standards to the Beatles, not classical so much; Dad listened to and talked about music a lot, and played clarinet occasionally. I learnt piano for years, (eventually achieving my ATCL after three attempts) and for a year, cello, but when I reached teenage-hood that all felt too goody-good and I branched out to drums, buying a cheap kit from Harmony House at the top of Queen St, to my mother's credit. Of course, like anything, drums were very hard to master, and they went by the wayside, but I never lost my love for rock music. Through those years I was going to rock and classical gigs in the Town Hall, with equal enthusiasm, as I still do. I'll never forget Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Rosen, Moura Lympany, but also Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Elton John, and The Stones.
What I absorbed from Dad in particular was a fierce musicality. An early childhood scene repays in my mind. Dad arriving home, with a record of African drumming, a fire burning in the grate, and his voice exhorting me to listen. I remember later when I was a teenager, he was onto the latest hits before I was. When The Kinks released 'Lola', he was visibly excited. He and I would crank the radio up in the car, blasting the Top Ten, or The Mamas and the Papas or The Beach Boys, all on cassette.
Throughout my career as a composer, he was deeply interested in everything I did. He was just the critic I needed. Only a few years ago, when he was 87, he came especially to Wellington from Dunedin to the premiere of my NZSO commission 'The Glittering Hosts of Heaven', dedicated to him and Mum. Halfway through, he leant over and said in a stage whisper: It's too long! A few minutes later he did the same thing. Gareth Farr, sitting next to him, leant forward to concentrate on the music. Dad was right about that piece.
He'd ring up from time to time with a thought. Look, the woodwind are buried in the middle of the orchestra - can't you amplify them?
Now, here's an instrument - the bass trombone! Think about it.
When a registered music teacher got fed up with me and my refusal to commit to practice for my ATCL, in my early twenties, she sent me to Peter Crowe, a NZ composer and ethnomusicologist, and something of a provocateur. I loved these lessons. In a basement flat often festooned with garlic, he would yell instructions from the kitchen, where he might be stirring kava. Odd guests would appear through the French doors from the garden, but nothing would faze me. I was married to my artist husband Ken by then, a bit of a provocateur himself.
Peter introduced me to new music, told me about the Karlheinz Company up at the university - said I should go up and see what it was all about.
This was the turning point for me.
I went to one of the early Karlheinz concerts, there was Stockhausen, Davidovsky…and Rimmer. I immediately felt at home, with these sounds, with this music. And this was my first sighting of a live composer! I could not have dreamed that one day I'd be directing this ensemble myself.
I never thought of actually being a composer - how could I be, I was a live, young, female, the opposite of my idea of the dead white male genius. In the first year of my BMus, John Rimmer asked us to 'compose a little piece'. I couldn't understand how I would do this. So I just started, and never looked back.
I was extremely fortunate indeed to be surrounded by a bevy of supportive males, as things would have it.
My father (who, mind you, said, Music? It's far too hard, why don't you do something easy, like Medicine or Law?...spoken as a surgeon), my husband, my main teacher John Rimmer, and later John Elmsly, I had Jack Body, who was always unfailingly positive about my music, I had music critic William Dart who wrote about what we were up to at the University, and Kerry Stevens at Radio NZ, always proactively interested.
In fact I actually went through postgrad study with three other women, Dorothy Ker, in my year, and Leonie Holmes and Glenda Keam the year above, so it didn't seem odd or unusual that I was female, doing the same thing. John Rimmer was terribly proud of this group, as you can see in this group pic, captured at a Nelson Composers Workshop about ten years ago. The four of us all have Doctorates, and University positions. We all still compose.
Image
If I needed female role models here, I had Gillian, and Jenny, Dorothy Buchanan, Dorothea Franchi and others. For me it was enough having living composers around. I had a little epiphany when I realized that Ronald Tremain, whose 'Sad Little Song' I played as a 'party piece' if my parents had formal guests (my brother recited Masefield's 'Cargoes') was a New Zealand composer, and had been the teacher of my teacher, John Rimmer.
That early recognition of the links between us in New Zealand has been a strong driving force, particularly in my university teaching, and advocacy. Key names and figures can slip by the wayside, if we don't keep them alive. Some of my proudest moments have been programming work by these composers.
Jenny's 'For Seven', received its first NZ performance by a group I co-founded, CadeNZa. A few weeks ago, we premièred works by our postgrad students Linda Dallimore and Garling Wu for Karlheinz Company's Suffrage 125 concert. Last year I programmed Annea Lockwood's 'I give you back', and 'Gone!' for 40 helium balloons and toy piano musicbox.
I've always been intrigued by Annea's work - she is something of the visionary. Her 'Glass Music' from the 60's is a detailed study of the sound of glass of every type. Here she is standing in front of an ongoing performance of her sonic installation 'Piano Burning' - I attended one in Sydney a few years ago, it's a really thought-provoking ritualistic experience.
Annea LOCKWOOD: Dialogue with Bottle and Jars
As I progressed through my studies, from BMus, to MMus and DMus I enjoyed meeting and working with other composers and musicians, and setting up concerts of new music. Having a young child was a busy time, but easier for me given my husband was, like me, a .5 lecturer. The far harder thing was discovering at the age of 35 I was bipolar, and I struggled with three significant depressive episodes. Like other composers with this condition, I've had periods of great stasis in my creativity.
But medication is a wonderful thing, at least for me. I'm lucky.
I am proud of my students and graduates. Women like the supercharged Claire Cowan, whose group The Blackbird Ensemble has given Auckland a real shot in the arm, whose films scores are beautifully crafted - and Celeste Oram, a gifted composer and creator of unique theatrical and visual work, a performer, and polymath.
Celeste ORAM: Image
I was dismayed, like many composers, to read the new 2019 programmes for the national orchestra, and the Auckland Philharmonia to a lesser extent. The NZSO has planned one work by a woman composer, not a New Zealander. The year after Suffrage 125, and the lineup of works reads as it might've when I was a beginner student back in the 80s - or, in fact, a hundred years before that.
What does that say about our culture? Crucially, what does it tell our audiences, listeners of the future?
That the music of women hardly exists? That it isn't worthy?
This time last week, I was also down in Wellington from Auckland, to attend the Stroma concert 'Vox Fem', a programme of works by six women, curated by Michael Norris
Vox Fem: Image
It was in the brief pre-concert talk, lead by Eva Radich, that she posited a question about this recent 2019 programming announcement. "What have you done about it?, she asked us, in a chastising tone. For a moment, we all fell silent, as we each internally, examined what in fact we had done.
It's so easy, in this small society to be overly-mindful of biting the hand that feeds, of speaking up against one's own employer - I know this to my cost, at the University of Auckland - but if women don't stand up for each other, who will?
This was Eva's point, and I thank her for raising it.
This programming is nothing short of shameful.
Here are some works I'd recommend to those NZ orchestras who choose to neglect the female voice in music:
* Gillian Whitehead's 'Karohirohi' for harp and orchestra, a spine-tingling, beautiful orchestral canvas - how often do we get to hear a harp concerto?
* Jenny McLeod's 'Three Celebrations for Orchestra', a Jenny-like romp through kiwiana. Jenny, alas, couldn't be with us tonight, as her health precluded it. She is a precious taonga.
* Helen Bowater's turbulent 'River of Ocean'.
* Or Dorothy Ker's subtle, magnetic 'a gentle infinity'. There are many scores, and the composers keep on coming. I know, I teach many of them.
* Sarah Ballard's 'Synergos', a glittering sonic cornucopia.
* Louise Webster's fine 'Concerto for Violin and Orchestra'.
Listen to Bowater's 'New Year Fanfare', and, by the way, think about whether you can tell if it's a piece of music is written by a male or female.
Helen BOWATER: New Year Fanfare
It sounds like music, am I right? Music perhaps influenced by Helen's teacher and mentor Jack Body, definitely influenced by Gamelan. Music written by an intense composer, sure of her sound palette, fearless of its forces.
We do live in enlightened times - our women excel across the disciplines in music. The glass ceiling for conductors has well and truly been shattered by outstanding young NZ women Gemma New, Holly Matheson and Tianyi Lu, while choral conductor Karen Grylls has been quietly championing music by women all over the world with her prizewinning choirs, for years.
Last year's APRA Silver Scroll finalists were all women - five of them, and Ella Yelich-O'Connor took out the prize for her perceptive art-pop song 'Green Light'. I flew to Christchurch to see Lorde in concert and this song was a rousing highlight, a sonic coming of age which blasted her into adulthood.
LORDE: Green Light
But we're not there yet. Yes, sometimes it's difficult to programme a concert or recording, with equal gender numbers. I've been guilty myself, of too male a weighting, of balancing programmes in favour of female composers, even of adding a woman to an all male lineup.
But I worry that once this Suffrage 125th year is over, programmes will revert to being thoughtless, unexamined and male-heavy, like the NZSO's example.
My own students are a majority male, and my overall generality about the young female composition student over the nearly 25 years I've been lecturing is that she very often lacks the two things that are essential for a burgeoning composer - drive, and confidence.
The few who have this, will be fine, and they're obvious early on. The others will possibly never compose again after they leave.
This year, I set up various suffrage events, concerts and workshops featuring women composers and musicians. While these have been all successful, I didn't experience the enthusiastic buy-in I was hoping for. The music student, to me, has always been disappointingly non-political, compared, for example, with her sisters in the fine arts, or sociology. After all, to even be selected for a music degree, one has to have demonstrated many years of disciplined performing or other musical activity. And one is usually from a family which can afford music lessons, and instruments, so we're already in a narrower socio-economic band. Many of the students are religious, and here often lies a concomitant conservatism.
One thing I instigated, was a Forum for female composers, a casual 'safe-space' to meet and chat with the others. Who showed up? Ironically, the four who 'didn't need to', those who already had confidence and drive.
I asked myself why, as I often do about the seemingly passive attitude of the female composition student. We know that in academic circles, male colleagues will apply for promotion before they're ready, whereas their female counterparts will wait till they're over-ready, and even then still feel under-confident about their ability. I've had a lifetime of being personally affected by this quandary and I have to say I slide along its scale. I have strong self-esteem, but I am still under-confident in some areas, even at my age.
I went to hear Helen Clark talk at the Museum the other night. As ever, she was full of wisdom, a good oversight of the problems that beset today's women, and was equipped with a fine store of one-liners. One had punch and currency regarding questions to Jacinda Ardern:
No-one asks men, 'Are you going to have a heart attack?'
This one in particular, stayed with me: No decisions about us, without us.
We need to be making the decisions. I shall keep urging my female students to step up, claim space, not apologise for themselves or their work, to gradually gain the confidence that's been beaten out of them and their female ancestors over centuries.
Last year, I embarked on a project that was a change of direction for me. I made an album with Steve Garden of Rattle, called The Gristle of Knuckles, nine selected musicians reimagining solo works of mine. I loved this whole process, the producing, the liaising with, and recording the musicians, many of whom were jazzers. It opened up for me a way of working that's more collaborative, not just a straight reading of my detailed scores. During the project, I became aware that most of the performers were male, and worried about that quite a bit, until it was pointed out that I was female, and that was the important thing. I'd forgotten that.
I want to finish with a track from the album, the soulful Mere Boynton singing 'hau' (breath, or wind). It's partly a tribute to the late New Zealand singer/songwriter Mahinarangi Tocker. It's a female lament, and thus, perhaps acts as a lament for our times.
Eve de CASTRO-ROBINSON: hau
Delivered as the 2018 Lilburn Lecture, National Library, Wellington, 2 November 2018
