René Peñaloza for Latin Pulse
Recognition for women’s artistic work has been quite a slow process; in the sphere of concert music such recognition has been specially late. To these days, even the most voracious music lovers barely know a handful of female composers, while huge talents such as Elizabeth Lutyens, Ethel Smyth or Pauline Oliveros are practically unknown to the general public. In the case of Mexican female composers, the situation is even more gloomy. Mujeres en la Música (Women in Music) arises to settle this historical debt, as a collective of female composers aiming to propagate women’s musical creations worldwide, more specifically the one originating in Ibero-America and Mexico.
Ironically, women had access to music education much earlier than to other areas such as science or philosophy. However, it was difficult for them to develop musically beyond the domestic environment -where they played music to entertain gatherings- and when they reached further achievements they were considered only as interpreters, a somewhat prevailing paradigm to these days.
“If you study the work of baroque female composers, you will notice that they had every ability, a fine schoool, a deep mastery of the technique and creativity”, explains Xóchitl Rovirosa Madrazo, a member of the collective and producer of Prelude to the Impredictable (Preludio a lo Impredecible), a record including one of her own works. “If you look into romanticism and the same is true. The sisters of the most outstanding composers, family members, wives and others. There is no reason to justify this view that ‘women interpreter, yes, but composer, no’”.
Women in Music originates within the research work of Leticia Armijo, also a composer. “[She] is aware that there is a lot of music written by women from centuries ago: in convents, churchs, households”, explains Rovirosa. “She had many elements to believe that it was feasible to create an institution in Mexico where women engaged in research, promotion and all that”.
The collective was born in 1994 and Murmullo de Siernas (Sirens’ Whispers), a Radio Educación radio series, rises immediately, offering “a space to feel and understand womens’ musical creations”. This program lasted little more than one year, while Mujeres en la Música (Women in Music) grows to include a documentation center, publishing of sheet music, edition of albums and videos, aside from the Encuentro Iberoamericano de Mujeres en el Arte (Ibero-American Encounter of Women in Art), which will hold its third edition on early March.
Some albums are planned for this year, such as a Fanny Mendelssohn’s (Félix’s older sister) piano music and pieces for two pianos by Ibero-American composers, among others. Rovirosa is particularly enthusiastic with the recording of the pieces by Rosa Guraieb Kuri, a Oaxacan of Lebanese descent who started composing at an early age. “Her music has Spanish, Arab and Mexican elements, a very dynamic sensitivity”, she explains. “This record was very important, it is a personal challenge for me because she is an elder and it is important that she lives to see her record”.
Stories as Guraieb’s or Emiliana de Zubeldía’s -composer and founder of the Conservatorio de Sonora (Sonora’s Conservatory) in the nineteen-forties- encourage the activities of the collective, which aims to reach all types of public, not only a small, hermetic group.
“The gear of all this is the involvement of women in society”, concludes Rovirosa. “We aim to include, not to exclude. We are inclusive, without excluding once again, because it would not work”. Efforts like this open the possibility of an association in the future.
