In honor of International Women’s Day, I’m excited to announce a new project of mine, Libration, which is going to focus on the many (MANY) women/non-binary people, past and current, who have critically impacted music history but remain in the dark as far as popular history and the general public is concerned, especially when compared to their male counterparts. These are the composers, vocalists, and instrumentalists who should be household names on the level of Louis Armstrong, Mozart, and Kanye West, but have had their contributions overshadowed because of how patriarchy has dominated music discourse for centuries. Seriously, it’s surprising how monumental yet hidden some of these musicians and their work is.
I’m attempting to be diverse in region and timeline, but because I am mostly western educated and active in a major US city, my perspective and knowledge is rooted in western pedagogy. I am not a musicologist with a PhD – but as a queer woman of color working professionally in music performance, composition, and education across the Bay Area’s diverse music scene, I hope my vantage point can bring something new to the table of feminist music history.
I’m intending Libration to be a blog living within Muse-Tripper, complemented with a playlist and updated frequently. We’ll see what it turns into 🙂 For now, it will be a personal project of mine to share my joy for this cool, wonderful music that totally deserves a fresh listen.
As usual, check in at www.camelliaboutros.com for all my performance and recording updates.