Women in Work: Composing in the classical music industry

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Top American orchestras are warming up their instruments for a new season of classical music. But according to one recent survey, fewer than seven percent of the music they perform over the next year will be written by women. As CGTN's Giles Gibson reports, there's a move to boost equality in the world of classical music.

Mozart, Beethoven. Ask somebody to name a famous composer, and it's almost always a man. But some say there's no shortage of music being written by women, it's just not being played.

LAURA COLGATE BOULANGER INITIATIVE "When you look at the previous season for orchestras, the top, I believe, 89 orchestras in the U.S. played less than 2% music by women, so we're trying to change that."

The Boulanger Initiative, named after French composer Lili Boulanger, has a simple aim: to promote music composed by women.

The organization recently held a three-day festival in Washington, D.C. with a program packed full of women composers.

In addition to boosting the profile of female composers, the Boulanger Initiative wanted to make its festival feel less elitist than most classical concerts.

Against the backdrop of a driving rain, an opera singer performed in a special concert truck certainly not a traditional venue like New York's Carnegie Hall.

Meanwhile, composers like Jessica Meyer say they want to shift audience perceptions.

JESSICA MEYER COMPOSER "Presenters making more of an effort to be inclusionary and also make it a point to have female performers perform female composers' music and just have those role models constantly put in front of not only adults, but children, so that people see that this is not always dead white guys."

But festivals like this are just a first step.

GILES GIBSONWASHINGTON "Some of the composers that we spoke to told us that they don't see 'women composers' as a genre in itself. They just want the same opportunities to have their music performed at world-class venues like this one, the Kennedy Center. Giles Gibson, CGTN, Washington."