Waking the Feminists, a campaign for gender equality in Irish theater, “has inspired moves within the musical world to improve the lot for female composers,” writes Michael Dervan in Wednesday’s (10/3) Irish Times (Dublin). Last year, Sounding the Feminists, an Irish-based collective committed to promoting creative work of female musicians, was launched. “The Minister for Culture, Josepha Madigan, dipped into the Creative Ireland program to … co-fund the National Concert Hall and Sounding the Feminists’ five-year initiative ‘to promote creative work by female musicians.’ … One of the questions that’s been on my mind … is when someone would present an Irish production of La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina by Francesca Caccini (1587-c.1641).…. The first Irish performance of the first-known opera by a woman … will be given by students from the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) on Friday May 17th and Saturday May 18th, 2019…. RIAM [has] presented operas by women in three successive years [following] productions of works by Judith Weir and Siobhán Cleary.… The academy is running another Saluting the Feminists day of short concerts, talks and panel discussions to tie in with the Caccini production on May 17.”
Posted October 9, 2018
