"Leighton M. Gill" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Alan Dudley <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
>>I have never seen any harm in organisations of special interest groups
>>being formed by like minded people.  Once formed, they may wish to exclude
>>people without their special interest.
>
>Like-minded people? Sure, nothing wrong with that.  I said in an earlier
>post that forming an orchestra to play music of female composers of the
>past who didn't get a fair shake is perfectly O.K.  It's not much different
>from an ensemble specializing in, say, baroque repertoire, and no one loses
>out on employment.  But when they hire only females as regular members of
>their orchestra, and will commission new works only from female composers,
>there is definitely harm.  In that case, they cease being people of like
>minds and become people of like gonads.  Sexism is wrong, whether the
>object of it has testicles or ovaries.

It's my understand - & i'm happy to be corrected on this - that the WP is
a festival ensemble in the sense that the musicians gather together for
specific festivals, concerts or tours; & have day jobs - orchestral; or
whatever - the rest of the time (exactly the same way as the most famous
festival orchestra of all - the Bayreuther - does...  most HIP orchestras
work the same way as well).  It doesn't play 60 concerts a year, with a
Beethoven cycle every quarter...  just gets together to perform a specific
program (or programs) of thematically linked music when the opportunity
arises.

While generally being considered one of the difficult SOBs when it comes
to issues of justice, i really find it difficult to see what the big deal
is about a group of women with a similar interests getting together to
play interesting music (mostly, as one correspondent previously pointed
out) written by women...  criticising them strikes me as nonsensical as
criticising Bruggen for only allowing HIP-inclined players into his HIP
orchestra.  I could sort of understand the argument in the WP was a
fulltime residential band with retirement plans, prospects for promotion
etc; but this is a completely different kettle of quarternotes:  apart
from the pleasure of performance & a bit of (relative) spare change, about
the only thing an orchestra member is likely to get from a concert is an
interesting credit in her resume...  does the average male orchestral
musician really need to fight for the right to get the same credit?

All the best,

Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.ausnet.net.au/~clemensr/welcome.htm>