Festivals and orchestras in Scotland are being urged to increase their representation of female composers.
An event at Aberdeen's Sound festival of new music today is to cast a spot light on the comparative lack of work by women being featured in music festivals.
Lucy Hollingworth, a composer studying at the Glasgow's Royal Conservatoire, who will chair the debate, said that orchestras and festivals need to pay more attention to female composers in their repertoires and concerts.
She pointed to the BBC Proms recent performance of the work of the late Welsh composer Morfydd Owen as an example of female composers who have hitherto been overlooked and whose music has benefitted from increased exposure.
READ MORE: Female composers mark Sound festival programme
She said: "We are not just talking about modern music, there are composers from earlier times that have been overlooked.
"Small examples of recognition can have such a large impact.
"I think the number one issue, is that I would like people who are able to make these decisions to look at the world of music as it is, not as they think it is."
The discussion at St Andrew's Cathedral will take place after the performance of new works by five women composers: Lisa Robertson, Aileen Sweeney, Electra Perivolaris, Ms Hollingworth, and Sarah Rimkus, given by members of Red Note Ensemble
Ms Hollingworth drew attention to recent article by the US composer Emily Doolittle.
It says that although 36% of composition students are women, 21% of commissions go to women, and only 7% of orchestral commissions, which are likely to be the highest paid, go to women.
In the US, 22% of music theory and composition students are women, but only 14% of major orchestra commissions go to women.
READ MORE: Violas and women composers in Sound festival 2018
Ms Hollingworth added: "Sexism has definitely been a factor, but there is a combination of reasons.
"There is also the 'canon' [of male composers], where for historical reasons there have not been as many prominent women, but I would also say there is a lack of imagination."
She said that the PRS Foundation's Keychange initiative should be taken up by more festivals.
It is asking such events to sign up to a 50:50 gender balance by 2022.
In the UK in 2017, women made up 26% of the line up of a sample of large music festivals, and less than 10% of headliners in the US.
Celtic Connections and XpoNorth have signed up to the Keychange initative.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here