I Think This is Progress!

The National Flute Association is holding their convention this weekend. I had a look at their website and found a list of all the music that will be performed at the convention.

Since I had just come from scanning the new uploads in the IMSLP for music by women, I decided to see how many female composers have music being performed at this convention. Since my method of tallying was far from scientific (but I did look up names), please allow for a margin of error.

My rough results:

Out of 403 composers (including 25 or so listed as "traditional"), 44 of them are female. There are also 30 female arrangers (arrangers of the pieces marked "traditional" as well as arrangers of pieces that were not written originally for flute). Granted, some of the arrangers are also listed as composers, and some have made arrangements of their own music for flute.

That still means that 9% of the composers who are having music performed at this convention are women.

I was surprised. 9% is certainly a larger representation than what we come across at concerts by orchestras or at major chamber music festivals. I also found it refreshing that many of the composers (around 250 of them, both male and female) represented on this list are living.

I imagine that the body of flute music that is performed at the NFA that is written by living composers will increase (this is far from an exhaustive list), and I trust that a decent percentage of those composers will be women. It would be nice to hope that during my lifetime (and I am looking at the possibility of a few more decades) the percentage of music performed at NFA Conventions will increase to somewhere closer to 50%.

N.B. Only two pieces by Mozart will be performed, one piece by C.P.E. Bach, one piece by W.F. Bach, and six pieces by J.S. Bach (four of which are arrangements).