The FMD sees plenty of room for improvement in terms of diversity
In Basel, the FMD celebrates diversity with its annual concert. The ensemble Le Donne Ideali has selected striking works by contemporary female composers from four decades for the event.
Annual meetings of associations and initiatives are usually rather dry, exhausting compulsory programs. Not so with FMD, ForumMusikDiversität Schweiz. For a few years now, it has become something of a tradition that the annual members' meeting is used as an opportunity to present works by female composers to the public. "Because we are female musicians, we naturally also want to facilitate cultural exchange in practice," explains the current president of the FMD Anmari Mëtsa Yabi Wili, "it's about getting to know more music by women." The FMD, founded in Bern in 1982, is an initiative of artists and their environment that persistently campaigns for female presence and more diversity in musical life.
The current FMD concert in Basel on June 25 with Le Donne Ideali and Guest offers a wide range of different stylistic perspectives and aesthetic concepts. Unbridled curiosity, the joy of playfulness and experimentation have always characterized the concerts organized by the FMD. In the 41st year of the FMD, the musicians closely associated with the initiative have selected solo pieces from four decades for flute, cello, harp and keys that are particularly close to their hearts. Seraina Ramseier will play music for solo flute from two very different artistic positions: "Envol", a late work by Caroline Charrière, one of Switzerland's most prominent female composers, who died too early in 2018, and the piece "East Wind", written in 1987 by Tel Aviv-born composer Shulamit Ran, which transfers twists and turns from traditional music and folklore into the expressive spectrum of contemporary music. In addition to the recently premiered cello piece "Fält" by the Swedish-French composer Madeleine Isaksson, performed by Karolina Öhman, there will also be the work "Baroque Flamenco" by the Californian Deborah Henson-Conant, which Julia Wacker, harpist in the ensemble, will contribute. She particularly likes the fact that the piece is "uninhibitedly on the border between serious and popular music", says Wacker, "Henson-Conant, who is also active in jazz, makes uninhibited use of early music and invents new techniques that come from flamenco guitar practice. This has an incredible sound effect and at the same time enables an emotional approach."
Anmari Mëtsa Yabi Wili, founder of Donne Ideali, interprets the piece "Public Privacy #5 Aria" for sampler, voice and video by the German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf. She was born in 1982, exactly the year the FMD was founded. "Brigitta Muntendorf is constantly pushing boundaries creatively in her works," enthuses Wili. Such an intermedial approach defines the entire evening in Basel: "We are opening up the concert format even further with the poem 'Penelope, angefressen' by Austrian poet Elfriede Gerstl, which will resonate through the hall as an audio-visual intervention," says Wili. The title of this poem, an angry Penelope, is the motto of the entire evening. After all, there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to equality. Anmari Mëtsa Yabi Wili: "In the contemporary field, it is largely no longer a question of whether female or male composers are played, neither among young musicians nor among university graduates. Something good has developed there, but only in the field of contemporary chamber music. When we go to the opera or symphony orchestra, the repertoire of female composers is still thin on the ground. It is also still difficult for women at management levels, for example at music academies. And: there are so many female conductors worldwide, it is incomprehensible to me that there are still entire annual programs in Switzerland without female conductors. In this respect, Switzerland is lagging far behind." At the end of the FMD concert, all participants will come together for the refreshing concept piece "Futures" by Chlöe Herington. The score of this work works like tarot cards. With this, the musicians will look to the future with a united strong voice. This also applies to the FMD: further networking and interdisciplinary projects are on the agenda.
Penelope, pissed off
Sunday, June 25, 2023, 6:30 p.m.
Kasernenhof 8, 4058 Basel
+41 77 481 00 72
info@khaus.ch
info@musicdiversity.ch
