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International Women and/in Musical Leadership Conference

7-9 March 2019 (International Women’s Day 2019)
Senate House, London, with evening events taking place at Club Inégales, London.
Invited Speakers: Jenni Roditi, Katherine Dienes-Williams, Alice Farnham, Emma Haughton, and Sarah MacDonald.

The conference will include a Royal Musical Association (RMA) Research Students Skills Training Workshop, which will take place, alongside other conference events, on Saturday 9 March.

Women Leadership Conference website image

Photo credit: Martin Delaney
Keynote speaker Jenni Roditi leading improvisers using bespoke hand signals

Musical leadership remains ones of the most male-dominated musical areas. As late as 2013, female conductors achieved a significant first, when Marin Alsop became the first woman to direct the Last Night of the Proms. Although female composers, songwriters, and performers have attracted significant scholarly attention, the issue of women’s musical leadership remains intriguingly under researched. This conference – timed to coincide with International Women’s Day 2019 – seeks both to redress this by focusing upon the participation of women in musical leadership (understood in the broadest possible sense) and to promote academic-practitioner dialogue.

In addition to two keynote addresses by leading practitioners Jenni Roditi and Katherine Dienes-Williamds, the conference will also feature a roundtable debate (featuring Alice Farnham, Emma Haughton, and Sarah MacDonald), and two evening performances at London’s Club Inégales. Club Inégales have, since 2011, presented some 100 gigs with artists from around world music-traditions collaborating with resident band Notes Inégales, who draw players from across genres. The first evening will be hosted by club director and composer Peter Wiegold, who usually uses a mixture of score, conduction, and improvisation. This evening, along with working with new scores by female composers, former Academy Inégales female graduates will be invited to lead the band. The second evening performance will be from Tic, Roditi’s professional improvisers’ choir, led by Roditi.

Programme Committee:

Rebecca Berkley (University of Reading);

Enya Doyle (Durham University);

Laura Hamer (Open University, Co-Chair);

Nuppu Koivisto (University of Helsinki);

Helen Julia Minors (Kingston University, Co-Chair).

The Programme Committee acknowledge generous support from the RMA, IMR and The Open University.