More women than men will provide new Proms material

SIGNIFICANTLY more women than men have been commissioned to write new pieces for the Proms.

The Royal Albert Hall will see performances of music written specially for the Proms by eight women, with just five male composers commissioned.

It comes three years after the Proms set itself a target of achieving a 50-50 gender balance by 2022 despite some criticising the move as “tokenism”.

Last year – when the Proms was aired online, television and radio without a live audience – it had 12 commissions by men, 11 by women and one by a nonbinary composer.

This year’s landmark festival will feature pieces written by female composers such as Unsuk Chin, Elizabeth Ogonek, Britta Byström and Gity Razaz.

David Pickard, director of the Proms, said: “We have to grapple with the fact there’s not so many symphonic pieces written by women in the 18th and 19th century and we’re trying to redress that balance by commissioning pieces for the Proms along gender equal lines.

“We set ourselves a target that by 2022, 50 per cent of pieces would be from men and 50 per cent from women because it reflects our society.

“It will also leave a legacy of wonderful music by women which there has not been in the past. We started doing that in 2018 and now more women are composing pieces and we have reached our target. We managed to achieve a 50-50 split for the first time in 2019 and we’ve now exceeded it and we’re very proud of that.”

In a normal year, around 30 new pieces are commissioned for the Proms and the festival aims to continue commissioning half of these from men and half from women.

The target is part of a commitment by 45 international music festivals to achieve a 50-50 split for their live act line-ups and commissions by 2022.

Mr Pickard said classical music has to confront its own history, just as other cultural forms – such as art galleries, theatre and film – have had to in the wake of campaigns for more diversity and acknowledgement of racism and discrimination. “It’s terribly important that every piece of art is given a context,” he said.

Previous work by Razaz has directly addressed sexism and inequality, with her vocal piece She Sings shining a spotlight on the Iranian regime’s ban on women performing music in public. Her orchestral piece commissioned for this year’s Last Night of The Proms is called Mother.

In a statement yesterday, the Proms said: “It is known that metrics enable change to happen. This target has and will continue to enable us to discover exciting new voices. Programming is done by artistic merit, and we are rigorous about the decisions we make around excellence.”