Last November the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra began its hugely successful outdoor Festival of Orchestra with a specially commissioned piece. Fly Onwards, Fearless Ones was a bright and positive work to set the tone for the series of six concerts. It was written by a woman based in Melbourne, Amy Jørgensen, but after that the rest of the repertoire was almost exclusively male. 

Listening to Schumann, 1883 by Fernand Khnopff

This is of course not an isolated example; in the year 2018 to 2019 a sample of 1445 classical concerts around the world revealed that only 76 contained music by a female composer. Classical music is still very much a boys’ club, and as a fully paid-up member of the patriarchy it’s time for me to start making more of an effort to increase the representation of women composers on our stages, positive action replacing negative inaction. No one can undo the hundreds of years of systemic suppression of female creativity, but we can make a start (and indeed the ASO is featuring a number of works by women in its 2022 season).

Take the example of Clara Wieck,...