Music and Gender Equality National Romanian newspaper Adevărul

Music, Gender Equality, World Economic Forum, EU’s Gender Equality strategy and my concerts in Bucharest with the George Enescu Philharmonic in a brilliantly researched article in the National Romanian newspaper Adevărul by Madalina Firanescu

“According to last year's report of the World Economic Forum, Romania ranks 90th out of 146 countries in terms of gender equality, a chapter in which the 2023 report on the situation in the EU places us at the bottom. The employment rate of women in Romania is 20% lower than that of men, almost double the European average and at a huge distance from Lithuania, the leader of the equality ranking (with a difference of only 1.4% between the two sexes) . At the same time, we are also bad at female presence at the decision-making level. Less than 25% of members of Parliament are women in Bulgaria, Ireland, Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary. At the opposite pole, six Member States achieved a good gender balance, with women representing more than 40% of members of the Legislature in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Belgium and Austria.

That is precisely why, to encourage those who would like to have a job, a career, a fulfillment outside the domestic space, the European Union launched the Gender Equality Strategy for the period 2020-2025, proposing that, until the end of the mentioned interval, all Europeans - women or men, girls or boys - enjoy the freedom to follow their own path and have equal opportunities. And for this purpose, it set some intermediate objectives, such as: stopping violence against women; combating gender stereotypes (such as "a woman's place is in the kitchen"); eliminating the pay gap for the same position between women and men and gaps in pensions; the assumption by both partners of family responsibilities and the involvement of more and more women in the decision-making process and in politics.

Unfortunately, the discourses on these generous themes are inscribed in the new "administrate", a language of the bureaucracy that succeeds very hard if not at all in convincing ordinary citizens. Even those who agree that women deserve equal treatment with men, both at home and at work, are exasperated by the wooden language of today, a rigid and often complicated language that also allows innocent or cleverly interested confusions between "gender equality" and "gender identity". Therefore, using an alternative, clear and emotional expression for the message of equal rights between women and men can be salutary.

This is what the formidable pianist Alexandra Dariescu chose to do, including in her native country. Known as an artist with an original and powerful voice, Alexandra Dariescu does a real musical apostolate, presenting, many times as premieres, very little-known works, especially creations of unjustly neglected female composers. For the two concerts at the end of May, in Bucharest, representing her debut with the George Enescu Philharmonic and the conductor Gabriel Bebeșelea, the pianist wanted to include in her repertoire the Piano Concerto by the African-American musician Florence Price, along with Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Rachmaninov's. Both works were composed in the same year, 1934, except that the first is quasi-anonymous, and the second enjoys celebrity. To Alexandra Dariescu's indignation and regret, the amount demanded by the copyright holders for Florence Price's score was prohibitive, five times (!) as much as for Rachmaninoff, so the idea was abandoned. But that did not discourage Alexandra Dariescu in her desire to promote the creations of women composers, the pianist performing masterfully in the opening of the performances at the Ateneu Concertul in A minor, op. 7 by Clara Wieck-Schumann, an outstanding musician, overshadowed by her famous husband. And more than that, at one of the 3 encores on Friday we still had... Florence Price, with the very short piece "The Goblin and the Mosquito", which allowed the performer to show off even more of her brilliant technique, but also many big smiles. It was the joy of a fighter for an inclusive music, shared with her countrymen. Congratulations, Alexandra Dariescu!