Irish Studies Seminar Series, 2021-22: “An Uneven Score: Gender Balance Investigation for Publicly Funded Composer Opportunities on the Island of Ireland (2004-2019)”

“An Uneven Score: Gender Balance Investigation for Publicly Funded Composer Opportunities on the Island of Ireland (2004-2019)”

by Laura Watson (Dept. of Music, Maynooth University) and Michael Lydon (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway)

Laura and Michael will speak on “An Uneven Score: Gender Balance Investigation for Publicly Funded Composer Opportunities on the Island of Ireland (2004-2019)”, in relation to an ongoing research project investigating the gender balance of publicly-funded composer opportunities on the island of Ireland from 2004-2019.

Ms Róisín Maher (Cork School of Music, MTU and PhD Scholar at DCU) and Dr Aileen Dillane (Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick) will join conversation as Guest Respondents, with Dr Verena Commins (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway) as expert Chair for the session.

Abstract

This seminar outlines an ongoing research project investigating the gender balance of publicly funded composer opportunities on the island of Ireland from 2004-2019. The Research Project is being conducted over two phases by the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland (CMC) and Sounding the Feminists (STF) in partnership. Upon a successful completion of Phase One, the project’s Research Associate Dr Michael Lydon began Phase Two in December 2021. Phase Two of this project is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, through CMC Strategic Funding.

The completion of Phase One was achieved by Dr Ciara Murphy, resulting in ‘Scoping the Project Report’. This detailed report considers the feasibility of the project, while also establishing an authoritative list of funding and commissioning organisations that offer specific composer funded opportunities, while determining the availability of relevant records for the project. Phase Two is scheduled for completion in September 2022, at which point a detailed report will reveal the gender balance of composer funded opportunities on the island of Ireland.

The seminar begins by establishing the impetus behind the project, while offering a brief insight into Sounding the Feminists. Next, it considers the finding from Phase One, before focusing on Phase Two. Specially, this entails outlining the methodology, the progress of the project, while also considering any initially challenges. Ultimately, the seminar presents preliminary findings from this necessary investigation into the gender balance of publicly funded composer opportunities on the island of Ireland from 2004-2019.

Contemporary Music Centre (https://www.cmc.ie/)

Sounding the Feminists (https://www.soundingthefeminists.com/)

Biography

Dr Laura Watson is Associate Professor of Music at Maynooth University, where she also directs the MA Musicology. She has published on early twentieth-century French music, with a monograph Paul Dukas: Composer and Critic (2019), a coedited volume Paul Dukas: Legacies of a French Musician (2019), and journal articles. Her studies of music and texts presently focus on popular musicians’ memoirs, with research recently published in the journal Popular Music and Society and in edited volumes. Current projects centre on women, feminism, and music, including the forthcoming coedited book Women and Music in Ireland (Boydell, 2022). Laura is a co-founder and member of the Sounding the Feminists Working Group, a small volunteer collective which leads national initiatives to address gender inequality in music and partners with stakeholders to achieve these goals. Laura is International Research Collaborator on the AHRC-funded Women and Musical Leadership Online Network (WMLON). Laura has been elected to the Council of the Society for Musicology in Ireland.

Dr Michael Lydon is a Research Associate for the Contemporary Music Centre (Ireland) and Sounding the Feminists. He is also a Lecturer in Popular Music Studies and Gender and Irish Music at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Michael is the former Communications Officer for the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies (EFACIS), and the current Reviews Editor of Ethnomusicology Ireland. His research areas include Contemporary Music; Popular Music Studies; Popular Culture Studies; and Sound Studies.

Róisín Maher is a PhD student at DCU whose research examines the representation of women composers on undergraduate music history programmes in Ireland. She is a lecturer at MTU Cork School of Music since 2004, having previously taught at Trinity College Dublin, Mary Immaculate College Limerick, and the National College of Ireland. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Finding a Voice, a concert series that showcases and celebrates music by women composers, around the weekend of International Women’s Day.  In addition to her academic work, a parallel career in arts management has involved her working with organisations including Universal Edition Music Publishers, Opera North, Opera Theatre Company, RTÉ Lyric fm, the Contemporary Music Centre, Crash Ensemble, East Cork Early Music Festival, and the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras.

Dr Aileen Dillane is an Ethnomusicologist and Senior Lecturer in Music at the Irish World Academy, University of Limerick.  She is Co-director of the Centre for the Study of Popular Music and Popular Culture, a recently designated priority research centre in UL.  Aileen is the PI on the HERA-funded project ‘FestiVersities: Music Festivals, Public Space, and Cultural Diversity’. As part of this project, the team is looking at the politics of space and participation in music festivals from an intersectional lens.

Registration

You can register for this event here: https://nuigalway-ie.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iWB4YsgoTIGstf-T7VH10Q