When Djely Tapa sings, the whole history of Mali resonates. Griote descended from griotes, it is her song that will seal the first day of the conference on women musicians on Friday, organized by the Center for Musicians of the World on Friday and Saturday.
In an interview, Djely Tapa, who now lives in Montreal, specifies that there are as many, if not more, female griots in Mali than male griots, even if this function is officially passed on by the father. She is ecstatic, in a capsule that will be broadcast during the conference, in front of the song of her grandmother, a griote recognized throughout Mali.
However, it seems that the representation of women in the world of music is not a given. Several studies are currently measuring its limits, explains Caroline Marcoux-Gendron, researcher at the Interdisciplinary Observatory for Creation and Research in Music and at the University of Montreal, who is presenting the opening conference of the colloquium, with Lysandre Bergeron, from the DIG research group! (Diversity and Gender Inequality in Music in Quebec) and McGill University. The two researchers are also launching a study on the journey of migrant women musicians in Quebec.
Shake up traditions
“There is a representation problem [des femmes en musique], says Lysandre Bergeron. The musicians tell us and repeat it to us. There are also issues of sexual harassment. This ties in with the problems of discrimination at work. Traditionally, the world of music has been as gender polarized as the rest of society. “The musical activity of women is highly developed, but it is contextualized according to the role that women may have”, says Frédéric Léotard, co-founder and director of the Center des musicians du monde and instigator of the conference. This is how lullabies, for example, are too often songs reserved for women.
Almost everywhere in the world, this confinement of the sexes is however tending to change. Hélène Sechehaye, Belgian researcher, will present the results of her research on gnawa performances in Brussels.
Gnawa is a musical genre, sometimes accompanied by dances and trances, originating in Morocco. This genre is traditionally reserved for men. But a group of women have recently shaken up the tradition and started practicing it.
For her part, Dalila Vasconcellos de Carvalho, doctoral student at the University of Montreal, will make connections between what she observed about the situation of women in the world of classical music in Brazil and what she notes in the world of world music in Montreal.
The colloquium will end on Saturday with a concert of kanun, a Turkish zither on a box, by Didem Basar, presented in the Chapel of the Hospitallers. “She does composition work from her Ottoman Turkish roots,” says Frédéric Léotard, who hopes to attract more female artists in residence to the Center des musicians du monde. “We support her to give her all the chances and the best possible conditions. “