The music industry is a vast and diverse field, comprised of vocalists, instrumentalists, producers and more, of different genders and varying backgrounds. This is evident in the music we listen to and the artists we enjoy; so why then, in 2018, are we still seeing events so heavily dominated by male performers?
This is something that Melbourne musician, Xani Kolac, wants to change. A talented violinist, Kolac launched the predominantly female event, Stand By Your Woman, last year, after realising she was often surrounded by male musicians, while her female counterparts went underacknowledged.
“I was getting the chance to perform with some really awesome female singer-songwriters, but we were backed by an all-male band,” she says. “At one point I thought ‘Wouldn’t it be awesome if we celebrated the female musicians that are behind a lot of front men and front women?’ People who are in the industry, extending to include the female booking agents, managers, and all those people who work behind the scenes.
“Originally, I had the idea to put it on in a small little venue somewhere and have a few guest artists, but I worked with Kenny from Rockwiz for the first-time last year and he rang me and said ‘I’ve got Hamer Hall for you,’ and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this has gotten massive,’” she recalls with a laugh. “But as a result, it meant that we could really get more of the most loved Australian singer-songwriters to join us.”
Compiling a lineup of guest artists was just one part of the equation, with Kolac also wanting an all-female band to tie the event together. She made it her mission to recruit a squad of female players across a range of instruments, branching out from her usual circle of musicians to find them.
“A lot of them I didn’t know, and that was something I thought was quite crazy, being an instrumentalist in Melbourne myself. I thought ‘There absolutely has to be female instrumentalists out there, because I’m out there.’”
Her search proved fruitful, and she ended up with the 14 female-strong ensemble, SPIRE, which stands for Sound and Performance Inspiring Recognition and Equality. It was also a little nod to the iconic architecture of Melbourne’s Arts Centre, where they played their first show, and will be playing again next month, joined by a fresh array of vocalists.
“I wanted to work with a really different diverse mix of women, so there are young women, there are older women, there are women from all different backgrounds and lifestyles and cultural backgrounds,” explains Kolac, who has recruited artists across a range of genres, from Mojo Juju to Kate Cebrano, and Shauntai Batzke to Clare Bowditch.
“I’m really grateful for the guest artists who have been involved, because they really believe in this concept,” she says. “They’re the top of their game in the Australian music industry, and to come and be part of something that is so democratic is very generous of them.”
For Kolac, Stand By Your Woman is a total passion project. The issue of gender equality is something she feels strongly about and has been witness to in her time as a musician. “I think that the music industry, probably like a lot of industries, works a lot on getting jobs for people who you tend to know,” she says.
“I fell into that too, where I’d play with musicians I knew, or who were the go to people in my scene and that turns out to be maybe the one bunch of male musicians over and over again.”
In order for things in the industry to progress further, she believes that people need to start pushing their own boundaries and branch out of their usual musical circles.
“If you just check in and go ‘Why am I hiring this person?’ Or ‘Why am I collaborating with this person?’ and if the answer is because they’re the person that you always get or they’re the person that everyone else gets, then maybe you’re not looking or trying hard enough to create something new.”
It’s Kolac’s hope that Stand By Your Woman can lead by example and be that inspiration of change for industry movers and shakers. She wants to show people that it’s not that difficult to find a diverse range of artists, not only fighting for equal representation of women, but any group who we often might not see on stage.
“I hope that a lot of young people come along to see it – men, women, non-binary, all people come along and see an ensemble of people who don’t usually get that kind of a gig,” she says. “I think that by seeing that young people will go ‘Oh, well anything is possible’ and then they can go along making their own changes and making their own statements based on their identities.”
Going forward, Kolac is optimistic that equal representation in the industry will become the norm, and we won’t need to be pleasantly shocked or surprised to see women included in such lineups.
“I think that eventually it would be great that we don’t have to point out ‘Aw, that’s a band with all women in it’ because every day we see bands with all men in them, and if you went around calling those bands what they are, you’d be saying ‘That’s an all-male band’ every five seconds,” she says with a laugh.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean Stand By Your Woman, events like it, or all female-groups would become obsolete. Kolac is quite excited by the prospect of the show becoming an annual fixture, and believes there’ll always be a space for SPIRE there, and in her life.
“I’d want to keep it changing and growing and building,” she says of the event. “And I’m really proud of SPIRE ensemble as a collective. I hope to keep working on that and making it more inclusive as we go along and engaging with other communities too.”
