An excellent evening was had by all at the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria Ensemble Extravaganza on Thursday evening.
We were treated to a plethora of performances, ranging from primary school ensembles, through to VCE students, through to top professionals in the form of MGQ. It’s really great to see the classical guitar and guitar ensembles begin supported in such a way by school programs and it’s great to see so much potential all on one stage. However, one cannot help but notice the lack of girls – c’mon chicks where are you?!The schools represented at the Ensemble Extravaganza were in the majority boys schools, so I concede that this may have influenced a lack of gender balance. Even with the co-ed schools, though, and within my own beloved Guitar Orchestra, the gender balance is firmly weighted down on the side of the boys. Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not some bra-burning, uber-feminist type, who thinks a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. And I bloody hate quotas, and positive discrimintion. I am merely a musician and a guitarist with a concern that perhaps young girls are not being encouraged to pick up the instrument and supported to continue to play it. We have an increasing wealth of female role-models in the guitar world too with Sharon Isbin, Xuefei Yang, Ana Vidovic, Karin Schaup….. Women are equal to men in the technical and musical ability to play the instrument…..I’m not sure of the reasons why and I’m just laying out my thoughts. I’m sure the reasons are many and varied and intertwined. I am sure, though, that the guitar world, as with many other disciplines and professions, can only benefit from having a diversity of people and perspectives.
Classical Guitar n Stuff 
I agree with you at some extend. You know, on the other hand, people seem to like and support female guitarists more! Its true both for the professional guitarists having recitals and concerts and for the amateurs who just post a video on youtube or anywhere. I think I can even say that imagining people had to choose between two guitar recitals, one performed by a pro male guitarist and one with an intermediate female guitarist. People would automatically have more tendencies to go to the second one if not automatically thinking the female artist is more skilled and better! This is something I have seen happening, you can easily make sure of it by going to youtube and check the number of views for a piece played be females and then compare it with view numbers of males. Im sure there will be a huge difference. I have some critics about pro well-known female artists too and I can make some points comparing them with pro male artists but I guess that would not be very pleasant to their fans, so I better dont go much further. I dont want to be accused of being anti-feminist either! and in advance, I deny all the accusations! 🙂