Who Rules the (Music) World?

International Women’s Day 2021

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge.  A challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change.
Female musicians have been on that path, to have their voices heard and to be treated like equals, for centuries now. The timeline of music is filled with exceptional women musicians such as Clara Schumann, a distinguished pianist, composer and teacher who in the 1800s performed and composed under the shadow of her husband, Robert Schumann. Film composers like Pinar Toprak and Hildur Guðnadóttir, that have succeeded to dispose the double standards of their male-dominated industry, and contemporary music composers Caroline Shaw and Kaja Saariajo that have bridged the gender gap of their genre. Some of the most celebrated Grammy Award-winning artists are currently women such as Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift who have assertively taken control of the production of their music and publishing rights. The call is out for an industry-wide reinvention and women are taking the reins and leading the action for equality.
 
In honor of this very important day, students of the Music Department will be introducing us to the female artists that have influenced and inspired them on their musical journey so far. Artists, that in their own unique way have attempted and succeeded to dispose the double standards that have contaminated the music world for decades.