Amplifying Women’s Voices
by Rachel Segal
When I was asked to travel to Alaska to play the US premiere of “Missing” with Anchorage Opera, I thought it would be another fun, cool new music project and I was very excited. What I didn’t know was that after two years of it being delayed due to the Covid pandemic, I would take part in telling the story of five thousand missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls on International Women’s Day. Learning about this epidemic and spending time with strong Indigenous and First Nations women, for whom it is immediate and personal, has reminded me how much women are expected to carry, and the role that art plays in healing the wounds inflicted by our society. To share such a powerful story with the world is the kind of experience that makes me so grateful to be an artist.
The Fairmount String Quartet’s focus on women composers was a huge draw for me when I auditioned several years ago, and with our recent album release and our continued commitment to amplifying women’s voices, I feel even more strongly that we all need to do more. Women are more than half the population, yet music by women is still largely absent from the core repertoire. We can change that by promoting the music of living composers from diverse communities, attending concerts by groups performing their music, and telling their stories.
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