Women’s History Month may be happening next month, but at ETSU and within the Department of Music, they are already making strides to celebrate important women artists. On Friday, February 7th, the Department of Music hosted a faculty recital titled “French Female Composers from the Art Nouveau and Art Deco Era,” where members of faculty such as Dr. Song, Dr. Oh, Dr. Geissler and Dr. Farzaneh led the night.
The program for the recital included works from composers such as Cécile Chaminade and Jeanne Danglas. The recital, as described by Dr. Song, was intended to “commemorate the female composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” The concert used this expression to bring light to works that may have been ignored by history. In fact, Dr. Song states that “the first recorded composer was a woman–Enheduanna, a princess and priestess of the ancient Akkadian Empire.”
Within the world of music, it is mostly male-dominated with little space for women’s voices or creations simply because their “expectations often relegated them to roles more aligned with that of a housewife than that of a musician.” It is something that needs to be brought attention to which is the very point of this concert.
Dr. Song stated that “[the] selection of French female composers” brought to the recital was only made possible due to the Paris Conservatory’s “relatively progressive stance in accepting and acknowledging female composers compared to other European countries a century ago.” Through this concert, the music department strongly hopes to bring light to these women bringing new art to their world. Even though, at the time, their compositions were not respected, events such as these make sure they are remembered and given a new sense of respect.
There is a live stream of the concert present on the YouTube channel of the Department of Music at ETSU which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIq1LL30PWE. For more information, feel free to contact music@etsu.edu.
