Review of the event “Who sets the tone? Vienna and its musicians. Funding – Compatibility – Role Models” on Tuesday, January 17, 2023 in the Vienna City Hall.
Tuesday, 6 p.m. sharp, coat of arms hall of the town hall: A rough crowd of FLINTA* people can be seen at a dozen tables, some are already sitting and waiting, others eagerly greet each other. In between there are also a few men, but the minority is significant. The PowerPoint glows in the background: “Who calls the tune? – Vienna and its musicians”. When you have sat through the six-and-a-half-hour event and left the town hall again at around 10:30 p.m., you wonder why men are included in the title. In the end, the podium was occupied exclusively by women*. How can this still be such an exception? If you want to believe the latest statements by an Austrian conductor, the question of the blatant unequal treatment in the music industry is “an artistic and not a political question”. Sabine Reiter, Managing Director of mica – music austria, comments on arguments like these as discriminatory statements. Because anyone who believes that one could fend off necessities such as a quota for women with explanations about quality assurance has not only not understood systemic disadvantages, but is also openly defamatory of women*. This is exactly why everyone is sitting at the von den on this January 17th Green Vienna Event organized by Ursula Berner and moderated by Karin Steger in the town hall: Because numerous women* are angry. And not just since the New Year’s concert.
“AM I YOUR WIFE QUOTE?”
The afternoon, divided into three panels, gives more input than you can write down. But the audience remains patient and conspicuously solidary. The mutual macho self-adulation, which is known from other panel discussions, is absent. Sabine Rider from mica – music austriaEva-Maria Bauer from Austrian Music Council“Queen of Power” Myassa Kraitt and BMKÖS-Representative Eva Kohout discuss the topic of funding with unalloyed honesty. However, the conclusion remains sobering. Music journalist Irene Suchy said in her introductory keynote: the music industry is lagging behind the other art sectors in terms of structural measures. Because how can it be that it is women* in particular who are the first to break with existing traditions in various historical epochs and yet keep disappearing from the records? It’s definitely not a question of will or quality. No, it can be traced back to institutions that still plague women* through male lobbying and financial unequal treatment again and again make invisible. It seems inevitable that support systems will have to take “tough” action here with a women’s quota and structural changes. The positive discrimination and the feeling of only being booked because of being a woman, as musicians Jelena Popržan and Tahereh Nourani describe in the subsequent talk, is not a pleasant feeling either. Especially because only then does it become apparent what a rat’s tail of misogyny is involved here and what “gender data gap” becomes clearly recognizable in terms of knowledge about female musicians*. The appeal is loud but clear: now is no time to be distracted by social “-isms” – women* have to make more and more demands and be encouraged.
“IT IS A POLITICAL ACT TO STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF.”
After an overview with informative figures in the first panel, things get personal in the next chapter: musicians Violetta Parisini and Teresa Rotschopf, Sonja Leipold from the IGN (International Society for New Music), singer Basma Jabr and film producer Sandra Bohle talk about Compatibility. The tenor is clear: as an aspiring artist, you can be as feminist and rebellious as you want – “Only when we have a child do we find out what it is even means to be a woman,” said Parisini. The five women on this panel are also mothers, but just like that put on stage as musicians, discuss questions that men don’t have to ask themselves every shift. Even in the most enlightened heterosexual relationships, it is still the woman who undermines her importance by reducing or giving up her job and at the same time “is isolated on the sidelines of being overwhelmed”, as Teresa Rotschopf aptly puts it. Yes, the balancing act between unpaid care work and career undermining is still done to a disproportionate extent by women. And Sandra Bohle, who has been the women’s platform for over ten years FC Gloria directs, reports from the film industry how strong the headwind is when you suddenly start making demands. At the same time, it also gives hope, especially in the context of the film sector, which is even more male-dominated: there has been a quota in the film funding system for a year now, and this is due solely to the good networking of women and their shared vehemence.
“I LIKE TO NEGOTIATE”
Just as Bohle’s work can serve as a guide for the music industry as a whole, in the third panel one wonders where the Rolemodels stayed and how can you empower yourself if you don’t have a role model? Conductor Verena Giesinger makes a crescendo entry into the discussion here: “I am a female conductor and I don’t have to do it like men did in the last three thousand years”. The argument recently expressed by the board of directors of a well-known orchestra that they would have a female conductor when the time came is countered by Giesinger with her sheer existence. Singer and performer Scharmien Zandi immediately takes up the word: “Problems of authority are very important for female artists”. After all, they do get you into a fighting stance when there’s no one around to comfortably pave the way. “I love negotiating,” says Zandi. Often it doesn’t seem to be possible otherwise. Because it’s true: Rolemodels are rare, but now is the time to create them. One is all the more grateful for the contribution of musicians* Pete Prison IVthe* in its beginnings simply no Role model in the Austrian music industry found: “There are far too few Asian or PoC artists: inside on the Austrian stages”, which is why Pete now also through the association There has been working on making and promoting the Asian diaspora in Austria visible since autumn 2020.
„I’M IN LOVE WITH MY FUTURE“
It’s rare that an evening that lasts so long fills the room to the last. But one has the impression that the calls for a repetition of such meetings are gradually getting louder as the hour progresses. Once again, it becomes apparent how networking is the greatest opportunity for women to actually structurally to change something: the collective has to open up its artillery again against the lone fighter: inside. And when, at the end, Lena Fankhauser and Hannah Amann seduce their string instruments to techno beats, Jelena Popržan disassembles her viola and one of the cuddle choir under Verena Giesinger with a Billie Eilish cover that brings tears to your eyes at the same time, then this collective has already taken a huge step in the right direction.
Ania same
Links:
The Green Educational Workshop
OMR
BMKÖS
IGN
fc gloria
Perillazine
cuddle choir
Violetta of Paris
Jelena Popržan
female music