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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2020
The rise of new musicology and feminist music criticism in the 1980s prompted a rethinking of gender in Australian art music spheres and resulted in over a decade of advocacy on behalf of women music makers. Local musicological publications began to cover feminist concerns from the late 1980s, with a focus on composing women. Catalysed by the proliferation of feminist musicology internationally in the 1990s, a series of women's music festivals were held around Australia from 1991–2001 and accompanied by conferences, symposia and special-issue publications. Aesthetic concerns were at the forefront of this debate as women musicologists and practitioners were divided on the existence of a gendered aesthetic and the implications this might have. This article examines the major feminist aesthetic contributions and debates at the time and how these considerations have impacted music-making practices, with particular reference to women composers of new music.
1 Cixous, Hélène, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, Signs 1, no. 4 (1976), pp. 875–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Derrida, Jacques, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978)Google Scholar.
2 In this article, I have used the term ‘women’ in order to remain consistent with the terminology used in the relevant literature; I acknowledge that this is problematic and that ‘women’ should be interpreted broadly here to refer to individuals who are non-men.
3 A few women composers were well-recognised at the time; however, they were more the exception than the rule.
4 Jane M. Bowers, ‘Feminist Scholarship and the Field of Musicology: I’, College Music Symposium 291 (1989), pp. 81–92.
5 Deborah Crisp, ‘Australia's Women Composers’, Refractory Girl 18/19 (1979), p. 48; Therese Radic, ‘Australian Women in Music’, Lip 79 (1978), pp. 97–110.
6 Also known as New Music Articles, this pathbreaking publication was originally acknowledged in Sally Macarthur, ‘The Woman Composer: Guest Editorial’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 21 (1988–1989), pp 8–9.
7 For a summary of this forum, see Macarthur, ‘The Woman Composer’.
8 John Carmody, ‘Furore-Edition’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 21 (1988–1989), p. 40.
9 Sarah Hopkins and Sally Macarthur, ‘Three Australian Women Composers in Profile: Sarah Hopkins: Sound Art from the ‘Heart’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 21 (1988–1989), p. 19.
10 Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
11 For example, women's music conferences were held in England, The Netherlands, and the USA in 1991.
12 Difference feminism focused upon women's difference, rather than binaries (such as man/woman), which often encode other meanings. See Sally Macarthur, ‘Celebrating Difference and Music at the 1991 Gender and Music Conference’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 33 (1992), pp. 5–9.
13 Terry Threadgold, Anne Boyd, Mary Finsterer, Mardi McSullea, and Sally Macarthur, ‘Presentation and Forum: Feminism and Music’, in The Composer Speaks III: New Music Australia Conference, ed. Sally Macarthur (Melbourne: Australian Music Centre, 1992), pp. 55–6.
14 Eva Rieger, ‘I Recycle Sounds: Do Women Compose Differently?’, International League of Women Composers Journal (March 1992), pp. 22–5.
15 Renée Cox, ‘Recovering Jouissance: An Introduction to Feminist Musical Aesthetics’, in Women and Music: A History, ed. Karen Pendle (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 15.
16 See, for example, Adrienne Fried Block, ‘The Child Is Mother of the Woman: Amy Beach's New England Upbringing’, in Cecilia Reclaimed: Exploring Gender and Music, Susan Cook and Judith Tsou (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Cox, ‘Recovering Jouissance’; Paula Higgins, ‘Women in Music, Feminist Criticism, and Guerrilla Musicology: Reflections on Recent Polemics’, 19th-Century Music 17, no. 2 (1993), pp. 174–92.
17 Sally Macarthur, ‘Ripping the Beard Off Analysis: Writing Moya Henderson and Gillian Whitehead into the Discourse’, Sounds Australian 31 (1991), p. 32.
18 Elaine Barkin, ‘“Either/Other”’, Perspectives of New Music 30, no. 2 (1992), p. 210.
19 In feminist writings, the other is usually used in relation to women, but may refer to any oppressed or marginalised groups.
20 Sally Macarthur, ‘Feminism and Music: The Female Energy in Anne Boyd's Cycle of Love’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 40 (1993–1994), pp. 32–5.
21 Macarthur highlights the potential gender ambiguity of the Boyd's instrumentation in this work, particularly the use of the flute (a high-pitched phallic-shaped instrument), the cello (a low-pitched, femininely curvaceous instrument), and the countertenor, who sings the women's poems.
22 Deborah Hayes, ‘“A Poem by a Woman's Hand”: The Greek Operas of Peggy Glanville-Hicks’, in Musics and Feminisms, ed. Sally Macarthur and Cate Poynton (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1999) pp. 57–61; Linda Kouvaras, ‘Operatic Snuff?’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 40 (1993–1994), pp. 119–29; Susan McClary, ‘Different Drummers: Theorising Music by Women Composers’, in Musics and Feminisms, pp. 79–86; Anne Power, ‘Write the Character in the Dust’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 40 (1993–1994), pp. 45–6.
23 Hazel Smith, ‘Sonic Writings: Gender, Language, Voice and Technology’, in Musics and Feminisms, ed. Sally Macarthur and Cate Poynton (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1999), pp. 129–34.
24 McClary, ‘Different Drummers’.
25 Pauline Oliveros, cited in McClary, ‘Different Drummers’, p. 81.
26 Benjamin Thorn, Quentin Grant, Ian Shanahan, Moya Henderson, Ros Bandt, and Mark Pollard, ‘Discussion: Innovation, Accessibility, the Audience’, in The Composer Speaks III: New Music Australia Conference, ed. Sally Macarthur (University of Melbourne: Australian Music Centre, 1992), p. 31.
27 Smith described her practice as ‘sonic writing’, a practice that involves ‘a semiotic exchange between words and sound’; see Smith, ‘Sonic Writings’, p. 129.
28 See Sally Macarthur, Feminist Aesthetics in Music (London: Greenwood Press, 2002).
29 Suzanne G. Cusick, ‘Feminist Theory, Music Theory, and the Mind/Body Problem’, Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 1 (1994), pp. 8–27; Jeffrey Kallberg, ‘The Harmony of the Tea Table: Gender and Ideology in the Piano Nocturne’, Representations (1992), pp. 102–33.
30 Macarthur, ‘Ripping the Beard Off Analysis’.
31 Graham Hair, ‘Dramatic Narrative and Musical Narrativity in Gillian Whitehead's Hotspur’, in Loose Canons: Papers from the National Festival of Women's Music, Canberra, 2001, ed. Linda Kouvaras, Ruth Lee Martin and Graham Hair (Canberra: Southern Voices, 2004), pp. 159–71.
32 Carol Biddiss, ‘Women's Potential as Soundtrack Composers: Implications for Tertiary Educators;, in Musics and Feminisms, ed. Sally Macarthur and Cate Poynton (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1999), pp. 29–33.
33 Zoë Sofoulis, ‘Forums from Resonances: Women and Technology Forum’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 51 (1998), pp. 17–18.
34 Threadgold et al., ‘Presentation and Forum: Feminism and Music’, p. 61.
35 Sheila Learmonth, ‘Sex Anyone? (or What Are We Really Discussing: ‘Sex’, ‘Gender’, or ‘Sexual Difference’?)’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 40 (1993–1994), pp. 28–9.
36 Therese Radic, ‘Past Imperfect, Present Indicative, Future Tense: The Repercussions of the Australian Composing Women's Festivals’, in Musics and Feminisms, ed. Sally Macarthur and Cate Poynton (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1999), p. 13.
37 McClary, Susan, ‘Different Drummers: Theorising Music by Women Composers’, in Musics and Feminisms, ed. Macarthur, Sally and Poynton, Cate (Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 1999), pp. 79–86Google Scholar.
38 Boyd, Anne, Hopkins, Sarah, and Mageau, Mary, ‘From the “Horses Mouths”: Is There a Woman's Musical Aesthetic? Yea or Neigh?’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 40 (1993–1994), pp. 30–1Google Scholar.
39 Boyd, Hopkins and Mageau, ‘From the “Horses Mouths”’; Threadgold et al., ‘Presentation and Forum: Feminism and Music’, p. 60.
40 Beilharz, Kirsty, ‘Is There a Woman's Aesthetic in Musical Composition?’, Sounds Australian: The Journal of the Australian Music Centre 40 (1993–1994), pp. 36–8Google Scholar.
41 Macarthur, Sally, Towards a Twenty-First Century Feminist Politics of Music (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010)Google Scholar [ebook].
