As the twenty-first century progresses, can those of us invested in the professional study and practice of music be confident that women working in music will finally gain an equality of opportunity and recognition? If we are not confident, what can we do about it? I have been active in the music profession for over fifty years, and have begun to reflect on that period to see what has been achieved, and what has not – and what lessons may be learnt, so that as we look forward, we can see how to bring about change that is enduring, not transient. As I am a composer, I focus on composers, but I think you will find that much of what I say is applicable to other disciplines. Classical music is my field, but it is not a special case. When I talk to colleagues who are conductors or songwriters, or who work in jazz or folk music, they too believe that there are still glaring anomalies in the ways that male and female artists are treated.

One of the most striking things of the last fifty years has been the rediscovery of creative women in music, art and literature; it is a process that is continuing, as illustrated by the Women and Music in Ireland conferences, and, indeed, by this volume. In English-speaking countries, this rediscovery has been particularly evident in literature. In 1973, the Australian publisher, writer and critic Carmen Callil, who spent much of her career in Britain, founded the London publishing house Virago Press. Through Virago, a wealth of anglophone women writers – Irish, English, Australasian, North American – became available again and new texts were published, many of which became best-sellers.

Meanwhile, the curators of art galleries who had previously only hung ‘old masters’ began to re-evaluate the work of their female contemporaries. Welsh painter Gwen John became valued above her brother Augustus John, while in Ireland, there was appropriate recognition for her early to mid-twentieth-century peers Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone. This rediscovery of the past in art and literature did not come at the expense of the present: women-only prizes such as the Women’s Prize for Fiction were founded to support new work, and the scholarship that underpinned the rediscoveries extended into studies of living artists.