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French composer Camille Pepin poses in her studio in Paris. Afp
From Francesca Caccini in the 17th century to Camille Pépin in the century: a virtual platform lists the works of more than 700 composers to highlight overshadowed artists for a long time.
Called “Ask Clara”, in reference to Clara Schumann – brilliant pianist, composer and wife of the well-known composer – this loose database introduced in June through a team led by Claire Bodin, director of the festival “Presences of Women” committed to female composers “Since our childhood, we have not heard the music of female composers, or so rarely that we do not remember ” Ms. Bodin said.
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“For us musicians, no marriage has been transmitted; we nurture ourselves through the concept of the genius of the wonderful composer, a man, without ever asking the repertoire of composers.”
This tool, funded through Sacem’s cultural action, has indexed no fewer than 4662 works through 770 composers from 60 nationalities, from 1618 to 2020.
The search is done through the name, title, instrument, country or epoch. Among the oldest, the Italian Francesca Caccini, who would be the first to compose an opera, Isabella Leonarda and Barbara Strozzi, one of the first professional composers, support the French Elisabeth Jacquet of the war.
And the platform has many female composers from Anglo-Saxon countries, “much more complex in this field,” Bodin says.
Enrichment and non-rewrite: a long-term study that began in 2006 and is not published “because it is a hot topic”.
“It’s not about rewriting history, it’s about enriching the repertoire,” Bodin says. “We will have to not only program them because they are women and give themselves an intelligent conscience, but also because there is a genuine artistic interest.”
For this keyist who has set aside his career to pursue these projects, the non-programming of composers remains a major impediment to the dissemination of his works.
For more than ten years, she has lectured on the subject and few of the audience can give names beyond the “top 5” of female composers, such as Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Lili Boulanger or contemporaries; Betsy Jolas and Kaija Saariaho.
“For concert halls, there is the restriction of filling”, which is based on big names such as Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Brahms or Bach.
“You can see the tip of the iceberg, because even among men, there are many composers who deserve to be exhibited,” Bodin recalls.
“Everyone has to start programming female songwriters because guest artists, if they’re sure others do, will hesitate to play those scores.”
Scheduled for March, the “Women’s Presences” festival was postponed from October 12 to 20. Since its inception, seven works have been commissioned through composers, adding one through the young Camille Pépin (29), who this year was the first composer to win an award in the victories of classical music.