The ACF Washington is honored to celebrate this year’s International Human Rights Day on December 10 with the exhibition opening of MusicaFemina, followed by a panel discussion on how to achieve gender diversity in music to be central in a gender balanced society.

>> 6.00 pm | Exhibtion Opening & Guided Tour by Irene Suchy, Co-curator of the exhibition MusicaFemina

>> 7.00 pm | Panel Discussion with Irene Suchy, Mia Zabelka, and Penny Brandt

The exhibition MusicaFemina is the first artistic and scientific music installation from Austria, dedicated fully to female composers and their work. The subtitle “Women made music – from the shadow to the light” reveals the purpose of the exhibition: To artfully highlight the substantial contribution women have made to the field of composition through the ages and to focus on the circumstances in which composing was possible but sometimes rendered impossible for women. Showreels, interactive multimedia stations as well as video installations will provide an insight into the wide range of female compositions, spanning from opera over to electronic music: a musical journey through the centuries! The contributions of MusicaFemina come from Clarisse Maylunas, stage and costume designer, and Irene Suchy, journalist, musicologist and author. The exhibition was already displayed in Vienna in 2018 and will now be shown at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC, presenting a selection of the most exciting installations of MusicaFemina and to recall the worlds of female composers.

Co-curator of the exhibition, Irene Suchy will be joined for the panel discussion by contemporary Austrian violinist Mia Zabelka, who will also perform at the exhibition opening, and Penny Brandt, representative of the Boulanger Initiative, which promotes music composed by women through performance, education, and commissions.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

PENNY BRANDT | Boulanger Initiative

Penny Brandt earned her PhD in Music Theory and History with a concentration in Feminist Studies from the University of Connecticut and now teaches in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Brandt has presented her research on gender, race, and inclusion in music at the national meeting of the Society for Music Theory, the New England chapter of the American Musicological Society, the Women XXI conference in Portugal, and she will be a speaker at the AHRC Research Network: “Representing ‘Classical Music’ in the Twenty-First Century” symposium in London later this year. She served as Artistic Director for the internationally-recognized Women Composers Festival of Hartford from 2013–2018 and is currently affiliated with both the Boulanger Initiative and the Institute for Composer Diversity. Dr. Brandt is also active as a speaker, writer, musician, and mother.

IRENE SUCHY | MusicaFemina

Irene Suchy earned a PhD of Philosophy and a Master of Arts. She studied musicology and music pedagogy, violoncello and German literature at the University of Vienna and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria, as well as at the Ochanomizu Women’s University of Tokyo, Japan. Among other lectureships she teaches gender musicology at University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and Mozarteum University Salzburg. In her past exhibitions she focused on political and artistic subjects, such as Staatsoperetten Kunstverstörungen – about the political atmosphere in Austria regarding art-scandals in the 1970ies – and Schmuck im Salon – the arts of contemporary jewelry. Dr. Suchy is a distinguished author of books on contemporary history and musicology focusing on gender, forbidden music and history during the Nazi-regime. She was honored by the republic of Austria and by the City of Vienna amongst numerous prizes and awards for her work as a writer, radio-journalist and cultural historian. In 2018 her foundation maezenatentum.at was chosen as an EU Creative Culture Project „MusicaFemina – women made music“, to be the lead partner for two years in a cooperation with Hungary, Germany and Slovenia.

MIA ZABELKA | Violinist

Mia Zabelka is a noise artist, composer, experimental violinist, and vocalist from Vienna. She studied the violin with Alexander Arnekov at the Vienna Conservatory and composition and electro-acoustic music at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria. After completing her training with a strong classical emphasis, she continued to explore the limits of sound and music in a language entirely her own, based on the de- and reconstruction of the violin’s sonic possibilities, expanding the range of the instrument using live electronic devices, preparing it through the insertion of alien objects and innovative performance techniques. Since 2008, Mia Zabelka has been the artistic director of the Klanghaus Untergreith, an international centre for sound art in the region of Southern Styria, and since 2009 the Artistic Director of the Phonofemme Festival in Vienna. She was also coordinating EU 2020 projects in the framework of EACEA Creative Europe program with teams in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and the Czech Republic, „phonart“ (2011-2013) and „Echoes from invisible Landscapes“ (2016-2018). Since 2019 she is also Vice-President of the Austrian Composer’s' Society (Österreichischer Komponistenbund)

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Parking on International Court is available after 6:30 pm (for the duration of the event) or on 36th Street; access to the Embassy through the park behind the building.

A registration is not a guarantee of a seat as these are assigned on a first-come first-served basis. Doors close at event start-time.