The Foundation Adkins Chiti - Women in Music

Women in Music, was born in 1978 as a movement promoting and presenting music composed and created by women worldwide, of all genres and in all times. “Equal Opportunities for Women in the Arts and Music” is at the heart of the mission and advocacy undertaken by the Adkins Chiti: Women in Music Foundation, an Italian cultural organisation, partner within cultural agreements undersigned by the Italian Foreign Ministry, member of UNESCO’s International Music Council and the European Music Council, internationally recognised for its activities to obtain recognition and visibility for women in the cultural sector.   The Foundation collaborates with the EUC for research projects. Its work has the patronage of UNESCO and the Arab Academy (network of cultural organisations within the Arab League).

How many women composers and creators of music are included in textbooks and encyclopaedias?  Far too few.  Those present are there because other women – musicians, scholars and historians – have wanted to celebrate their contributions.  If music is not performed, it is not perceived to exist; women’s music is a tangible and intangible part of world heritage.  Making it known is the mission of Women in Music.

The Foundation has a network in 111 countries made up of “Women in Music Organisations”, individual composers, researchers, musicologists, performers and teachers. This network also includes 77 affiliated organisations in 44 countries (associations, conservatories, academies, universities) working on behalf of Women in Music.  In December 2003, with a Decree from the State Archives and Heritage Ministry, the Library and Archives of the Foundation containing over 35 thousand scores of music by women were officially declared to be “historically relevant for the State” and “essential for the study of women’s history”.

In the last thirty two years the network has grown to include over 27.000 composers, creators of music, pedagogues, musicologists, researchers and musicians. Herewith some statistics for the work undertaken in Italy since 1978: 921 different concert programmes produced with works by 1102 women composers and creators of music from 79 different countries. Research and direct participation in nearly 80 books of which 27 produced entirely by the Foundation in the following languages: English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Portuguese, Chinese.   The Website of the Foundation includes the “Declaration of Fiuggi” (mission statement) in 27 languages, an online Digital Library, and a collection of over portraits of women composers.

The activities of the Foundation include ongoing research, collection of historical and contemporary data about women composers in all genres, collection and preservation of music composed and created by women, publication of books (dictionaries, monographs, collections of scholarly studies) and the preparation and presentation of concert series, festivals, conventions, symposiums and research projects centred upon music composed by women. The Foundation also commissions new works and underwrites original field work worldwide.

Donne in Musica organised a large part of the concert activities for the 2000 Jubilee Celebrations of the Catholic Church, including the creation of two major events within the Vatican. In the nineties the RAI (Italian Television) commissioned a 32 programme series dedicated to Women in Music, in 2006 the Foundation created the Gala for Women’s Music within the World Music Forum in Los Angeles, and also produced and took to the Schönbrunn Theatre in Vienna, the first performance in modern times of the opera “Ulisse in Campania” by the Milanese composer Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini, thereby becoming the only non-Austrian production during the Mozart Celebrations.   In 2009, the European Parliament passed the Resolution calling upon all Member States to empower women in the arts, culture and academic world – during the next three years the Foundation will be conducting a lobby to ensure that this Resolution is assumed by governments around Europe.

The aims of the Foundation are to:

Promote and encourage research, conservation and the diffusion of documents and classical, traditional, popular and electronic music on any type of support, as long as it is the fruit of female creativity.

Establish, maintain and promote contacts with libraries and music documentation centres throughout the world.

Organise studies and engage in historical and musicological research, meetings, seminars, publications and any other related initiatives involving every type of technology, public performances and listening sessions.

In particular, the Foundation:

Will expand its library in the various sectors and enlarge its archives of documentary materials through purchases and donations, while guaranteeing the protection and valorisation of its patrimony;

Promote the publication of catalogues of its patrimony, including computerised data banks, the publication of monographs, musical editions, and an online newsletter.

Establish scholarships for:

The creation of doctoral theses regarding women in music;

Research regarding the contributions of women to the history of music;

The copying of scores and of musical creations by women composers of all nationalities

The Foundation promotes and encourages cultural exchanges with conservatories, universities, libraries, theatres, orchestras, foundations, associations, institutes, national and international documentation centres by means of catalogue data on computer networks, and promotes joint activities with associations, foundations and other institutes, both in Italy and abroad, with aims similar to those of the Foundation, with the objective of creating an international network of those institutions that pursue, together or separately, the aims of the Foundation.

The President and founder of the “Donne in Musica”, Patricia Adkins Chiti, is an internationally renowned professional musician, musicologist and former Italian State Commissioner for Equal Opportunities, consultant on Equal Opportunities in the arts and culture for many European governments. In June 2004 the President of the Italian Republic honoured her with the title of “Cavaliere Ufficiale” for her work for music and for women in music.

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