ISCM in women's hands for the first time
At the General Assembly of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), a woman was elected President for the first time in its 97-year history: Glenda Keam from New Zealand.
Keam (ISCM New Zealand) succeeds the retiring Peter Swinnen (ISCM Flanders). The new Vice President is Frank J. Oteri (New Music USA) from the USA. Irina Hasnaş (ISCM Romania) was newly elected to the Board. The other board members are Tomoko Fukui (ISCM Japan), George Kentros (ISCM Sweden) and Olga Smetanova (Secretary General, ISCM Slovakia).
Glenda Keam will be responsible for the organization of the ISCM World Music Days 2020 in New Zealand. The first female ISCM President comes from the country that was the first to introduce women's suffrage in the modern era, and her election in 2019 means that the ISCM will have a female president when it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022.
The International Society for Contemporary Music ISCM goes back to an initiative of the Second Viennese School during the Salzburg Festival in 1922. Its founding members included the composers Bartok, Hindemith, Honegger, Milhaud, Ravel, Berg, Schönberg, Stravinsky and Webern. It organizes the World Music Days (WMD), which take place every year in a different country.
