Les Femmes de GRM

In the concert series »Les Femmes de GRM« female composers will be presented, who worked at the studio »Groupe de recherches musicales« or collaborated closely with this studio.

Founded by Pierre Schaffer as institute for the research of electroacoustic music in 1958, the GRM represents one among several theoretical and at the same time experimental groups of works that comprised part of Schaeffer’s »Service de la Recherche« at the French radio. The goal was to develop a platform which served research work in the field of audio-visual communication, the music as well as other audible or medial phenomena. Several well-known »music concrète« composers are connected with the group.
 
When considering the GRM one of the striking features is the predominance of male artists in the public’s perception of the institution, in spite of the fact that female artists played a decisive role in the development of electroacoustic music around Schaeffer. Various generations of women in the GRM have failed repeatedly due to the same hurdles: independent compositional work proved difficult since, for women, access to the necessary studio equipment and devices was often made difficult or even denied them. Moreover, even the most talented female composers were frequently obliged to wait, for the most part in vain, for their works to be performed, in spite of the fact that the artists in question worked with the most innovative technologies, and contributed to the further development of Schaeffer’s method.

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