The theme for International Women’s Day in 2019 is #BalanceforBetter.

Happy International Women’s Day! The team would like to acknowledge that lists such as these invariably exclude more composers than they promote. However, we embrace the opportunity to reflect on the striking music featured by female-identifying composer in Making Waves playlists and the Making Conversation Podcast since our inception in 2015.  We continue to welcome all composers, but in particular encourage women and gender diverse composers to submit your recordings to the Making Waves curation pool at any time and as often as you like.

We’ve collected a few examples of some ways composers and musicians are working towards a “Balance for Better” in our musical communities. This list is something we’re going to be building on over time in a special  dedicated resource page on our website to commend the work of inclusive and forward thinking creatives (coming soon). If you have suggestions of continuing initiatives or forward thinking ensembles and organisations to add, please comment below or email us at makingwavesnewmusic@gmail.com.

• The outstanding work of the Institute for Composer Diversity via the Composer Diversity Database and USA focused orchestra season analysis.
• Closer to home, we acknowledge the ongoing work and research presented in 2018 at the The Gender Diversity in Music Making Conference at Monash University and look forward to the 2019 edition, The Gender Diversity in Music and Art Conference, at the University of Western Australia July 16-29, Perth. [Note the current call for presentation proposals, due 22 March 2019!]
• We look forward to ABC Classic FM’s Festival of Female Composers and the inaugural Women in Music Festival 2019 at RMIT in Melbourne.
• Also a shout-out to some of the resources mentioned last year, still excellent and relevant:
  • The Women in Sound Women on Sound reading list
  • Music Theory Examples By Women
  • GRID (Gender Research in Darmstadt) and Ashley Fure’s reflections in 2016.
  • Ian Whitney’s Australian Content in 2019, is now a beloved annual blogging tradition. Whitney crunches the numbers closer to home on Australian content programmed by the Major Performing Arts Organisations, including attention to gender representation.

And now, over 20 hours of musical works and podcast audio for you to discover and enjoy! Listen through in order today while you work, bookmark to return, click shuffle to be surprised or all of the above!

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