Real change is afoot as PRS Foundation announces huge gender equality pledge
The PRS for Music Foundation's Europe-wide Keychange project , a large-scale initiative to tackle gender equality in the music business, has spectacular news today: it has achieved commitments from 45 (yes, forty-five) different international musical organisations to make their proceedings gender-equal (yes, 50-50 male-female) by 2022. The organisations in question include the Cheltenham International Music Festival - which has been ahead of the game on this for the past few years, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Manchester Jazz Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, Roundhouse Rising, Spitalfields Music and, indeed, the Proms. These are just a few examples. Everyone knew it was time for change; the question was how to make it happen. A century after the first small tranche of women were granted the vote in Britain, it was clear that change of this type doesn't happen on its own. It takes big and ambitious thinking, initiative, imagination, negotiation, tenacity,...