Give women composers a break!

Sydney Conservatorium of Music's Professor Liza Lim is appealing to festival and concert programmers in Australia for an equal gender split in music commissions and performances. A leading Australian composer, Professor Lim makes the call in her keynote address at the Women in the Creative Arts Conference in Canberra today. She points to four major European festivals in new music that have recently committed to a 50:50 gender split in programming over the next five years, and calls on Australia to do the same. "In year 12 and at the beginning of tertiary studies, we see a 50:50 gender split but this dwindles to around 20 to 25 per cent participation by women in the industry, and even less for composers," says Professor Lim. "Sexism is structural in our society and as a result, so is the magic ingredient that allows an artistic practice to thrive - what we call 'luck'. "For the luck mechanism to kick in, it requires that you're given a go in the first place. It requires multiple opportunities to try things out, to practice, to fail, to partly succeed and to keep trying." During her talk, Professor Lim coins the idea of 'structural luck' as a key factor in determining success in the arts.