14 November 2005

Next Thing You Know, They'll Let Women Vote...

Via Daniel Felsenfeld's awesome new blog :

"Finally, at long last, and to much hoo-hah in the press, a woman will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, a famously stubborn all-male holdout organization which had the grace, a few years back, to finally admit a female to their orchestral ranks--a harpist, of course. But hell, this is progress!"

Please join me as I shamelessly plug the Women In Music Festival (WMF) at the Eastman School of Music. Designed to celebrate and promote women involved in all aspects of music, including composition, performance, teaching, scholarship, and administration, it was a great hit last year - its inaugural season.

It was much fun co-founding the festival - from creating the logo and image*, to formulating the mission statement, and formatting the layout of the concerts, etc. It will be nice to focus more on programming and Libby Larsen's visit, among other things, this time around. I'm thrilled to serve as the assistant director of the festival again this year; the director, Dr. Sylvie Beaudette, is one of the most amazing women I have ever met.

*I really had a blast with the festival's logo. My seed ideas consisted of doing something along the lines of MU[women]SIC (get it? women in the word "music"?!). Finally, I designed the concept of a half note combined with the female sign. I picked orange and grey because I think those colors look nice together, and we wanted to dispel the idea that anything related to women had to be pink. Nathan, my amazing graphic designer friend, saw the potential desperately trying to peek out of my feeble attempts forged in the deep dark files of Microsoft Word, and actually made logo look cool (see above).

4 Comments:

At 6:30 PM, Blogger OhMyTrill said...

I think that the woman harpist was already playing with the orchestra, but since she was of the female persuasion, she couldn't be a full time salaried player. When they were forced to start accepting woman, theyjust added her to the payroll, and I think she is the only one they ever accepted...you might want to fact check me on that one. Hmmm...Oh, and I hate to admit that I didn't go to any performances of the Women in Music Festival last year...I will have to make it a top priority!!! Please shamlessly plug all of the concerts on your blog. I'd love to be involved in some way if I can!

 
At 10:33 PM, Blogger philosophia said...

Hey ohmytrill,

Thanks for the comment. Yeah, I'll have to look into the deal with the harpist "of the female persuasion" in Vienna. :)

Do participate in WMF this year! Information sheets are outside of ESM 326 (Dr. Beaudette's office).

 
At 11:04 PM, Blogger Daniel said...

Alas, I live in the wrong part of New York to attend your festival, though it sounds great. Do you do anything with jazz there?

And thanks so much for your kind words about my blog!

 
At 6:45 PM, Blogger philosophia said...

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for your comment! Yes - the WMF does include jazz and ragtime music by women composers. Last year, we featured Billy Holiday and Raie Da Costa, among others.

Any kind comments about your blog are well-deserved! :)

 

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