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• Oral presentations should be 20 mins followed by 20 mins for questions.
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• Pre-recorded Presentations: Oral or performance presentations can be pre-recorded and submitted as digital media. These should be a maximum of 25 mins**.** Prerecorded  presentations will be available to  view before the event and the full 40 mins of the session will be used for feedback and questions.

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<aside> ℹ️ What to expect from this event:

• The course platform will go live on Notion on 2nd June. You will receive a link to access all course materials and information. Before the event you will be able to prepare by viewing digital presentations and find out more about other participants .
• Music4Change event is an international, interdisciplinary learning environment where music-focused researchers from a wide range of fields and methods come together to discuss their work and exchange knowledge. When preparing your presentation please consider how to communicate your project with people who may be outside your specific area of study and/or geographical location.
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Katie Ambrose PhD Candidate, University of York

Music-making in gendered settings: what have we got to fear?

Key words: choral music, gender, technology, chorister, vocal

https://vimeo.com/840842723?share=copy

The British choral tradition has been developed on an androcentric platform, and has maintained this culture of exclusivity over its evolution. It is only within relatively recent times that some of the cathedral foundations have begun to question and enact change to allow the integration of girls as choristers within their choirs, and women mezzo-sopranos and contraltos onto the back rows. Whilst this integration of women and girls into these choirs is an important and positive move in the right direction, the institution is still inherently gendered and does not allow the musical participants to exist in a space where their role is not defined by their sex.

The aim of this paper is to look at the impact of the developing landscape of the British choral tradition, examining the environment from the perspective of people who identify as either women or non-binary, taking a look at the impact of these gendered roles on the perceived sound of the ensemble from within and outside the ensemble. It will examine whether this perceived ‘change’ in the sound impacts the quality of the output, or whether it has been fabricated by those caught up in years of gendered thinking.

This is preliminary research attached to the wider work of my thesis, which is a mixed methods study based on Georgina Born’s theory of mediation (2011) investigating the intersections between technology, gender, religion and choral performance. It includes analysis of three initial interviews: with a female music producer, a female singer from an androcentric cathedral foundation, and a female conductor, and their experiences in the choral music profession.

References

• Born, Georgina. “Music and the Materialization of Identities.” Journal of Material Culture 16, no. 4 (2011): 376–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183511424196.
• Howard, David M., John Szymanski, and Graham F. Welch. “Listeners' Perception of English Cathedral Girl and Boy Choristers.” Music Perception 20, no. 1 (2002): 35–49. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2002.20.1.35.
• Welch, Graham F., and David M. Howard. “Gendered Voice in the Cathedral Choir.” Psychology of Music 30, no. 1 (2002): 102–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735602301008.
• Williams, Jenevora. “Cathedral Choirs in the United Kingdom: The Professional Boy Chorister.” Perspectives on Males and Singing, 2011, 123–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2660-4_9.

About Katie

Katie is a postgraduate researcher at the University of York, working on a thesis about the intersection between choral music performance, technology, and gender. Katie is specifically interested in how a technologically mediated society may have accelerated gender diversity in ‘traditional’ choral environments, with a particular interest in whether social media and the ‘me-too’ movement have provided an added external pressure to institutions to make change.

Alongside her study, she is the General Manager of a baroque ensemble named the Oxford Bach Soloists. She is also a freelance mezzo-soprano and regular deputises with groups and churches in London, and in the UK more broadly.