New Standards in Europe: Lead Sheets by Female Composers

ongoing

"The project ""New Standards in Europe: Lead Sheets by Female Composers"" is a multi-dimensional and collaborative project that includes a research project, a printed publication, an international competition and recordings. The goal of the project is to draw attention to European female role models in jazz and to promote gender equity in jazz as an art form, where women are currently severely underrepresented. The centerpiece of the project is a publication as a compilation of 101 compositions in the form of sheet music by women composers currently active in Europe or of historical significance to Europe. An international panel of experts will be involved in researching and selecting the compositions from all european regions that will be compiled in the first published volume. A second publication with arrangements on the lead sheets and a CD recording will follow. The selection and editing process will be led and overseen by the Jam Music Lab Private University for Jazz and Popular Music Vienna (JMLU). The process of the selection will be documented and published as an artistic research project at JMLU with an ethnographic approach, documenting the planning and working process with video and audio material, interviews and reflective analysis. Schott/Advance Music, one of the world leading publishing houses for music, will license and publish the compilation. A further component of the project includes a competition for arrangements of the lead sheets for various ensemble sizes, for both professional and amateur musicians, in order to achieve sustained and widespread dissemination in both the professional and amateur music sectors, especially for training and development of capacities of artists and professionals. The project will benefit already active female jazz artists, girls and women who will be encouraged in their artistic work in the field of jazz, but also the European jazz scene, whose so far underexposed cultural european heritage will be highlighted."