This spring, Sonoma State University voice students and faculty present a series of performances - 2020 Songs - in which singers will examine the work of women composers and lyricists in honor of the 100th anniversary of the ratification and adoption of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote in the U.S.
For years, our vocal recitals have frequently featured programs comprising solely the work of male composers, and this fact was unremarked by most of us.
“When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.”
― Ruth Bader Ginsburg
We are implementing an “RBG approach” to our programming this spring, attempting to perform only works by female composers and/or lyricists. In addition to the solo voice recitals in March and May, our Music Theatre Scenes class will perform scenes by Jeanine Tesori, Lucy Simon, and Goldrich & Heisler, and our Opera Scenes class will present Pauline Viardot’s chamber opera, Cendrillon. Perhaps after some initial shock or surprise to see an all-female lineup, such programs will become more common and unremarkable.
SSU voice students will take time to reflect on and write about their experience choosing, preparing, and performing the work of women. We will collect some of those reflections here on our 2020 Songs project blog.
You can find a full schedule of 2020 Songs events here on the SSU website.
We look forward to hearing from our audiences about how this music affects them, whether learning more about the work of women composers changes the way they observe the programming of arts organizations beyond our campus, and if our audience members have any suggestions or information they would like to share with us here or at our concerts. We march, musically, with the suffragists who paved the way for the 19th amendment and the continued work to strengthen and make universal voting rights in our country.
Dr. Justin Montigne
Voice Faculty, Sonoma State University