Donne have just published their annual report which analyses the repertoire of 111 world leading orchestras. While social media may have it appear that the prchestral world is making efforts to play more works by women and folks from the global majority, the data presented in his report tells. different story. Here are some of the statistics from the executive summary:
Only 7.5% of works were composed by women, a slight decrease from 7.7% last year. Of these, 5.8% were composed by white women, and works by women from the global majority accounted for just 1.6%.
Men composed 92.5% of the scheduled works, predominantly white men (89.3%). Global majority men contributed 3.2% of the compositions.
Non-binary composers represent less than 0.1%.
The top 10 composers, all historical white European men, accounted for 30.6% of all works. These 10 composers were played more than four times the combined total of all works by women.
Is the fact that only 7.5% of works performed by women shocking, or more evidence of an industry that appears to be avoiding women, non-binary and global majority folk? It will be interesting to see the discussions and actions that will be generated from the publishing of this report over the next few months.
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