Even though Festival 4020 and LINZFEST have long since come to an end, FIFTITU% would like to speak out once again with regard to a reflective review and a constructive discussion of the musical programming

To this end, FIFTITU% was a guest on Kartell TV - notes with ratings:

FIFTITU% welcomes the efforts towards gender equality in the content part of the 4020 festival, for example with Petr Kotik's composition "Many Many Women", which is based on a text by the American writer Gertrude Stein. Or the world premiere by composer Ashot Zohrabyan, who used love poems by Herta Kräftner as a basis. The focus on Armenia also paid homage to a woman: the celebrated mystic Sahakadukht. On closer inspection of the program, however, FIFTITU% discovered that the festival was predominantly male-dominated. The production and composition commissions went exclusively to male composers. The ratio of female and male performers was unbalanced at 35% to 65%.

This year's LINZFEST also generated a lot of e-mail traffic at FIFTITU%. We received several responses regarding the music programming, with the criticism mainly referring to the lack of stage presence of female artists. In particular, FIFTITU% would like to see and hear a better balance of female and male artists on the FM4 stage in the future.

The argument that it would not be so easy to engage female artists because of the "great male dominance in the music sector" is too short-sighted and perpetuates a male dominance that needs to be broken up. The LINZFEST 2008 with the title "Walk of Fem" deserves praise here, where the presence of women was more than satisfactory for the first time.

Both at this year's Festival 4020 and at LINZFEST 2011, the City of Linz's funding criteria, in particular the promotion of women, were not implemented:

"Its funding policy is based on criteria such as innovative strength, originality, focus, equal opportunities, promotion of women, long-term development opportunities for young talents, preservation of cultural diversity, high quality of tradition and preservation of cultural heritage." (Guidelines for the promotion of art and culture in the City of Linz, http://www.linz.at/kultur/2270.asp, as of June 30, 2011)

"The City of Linz is committed to gender equality, to the abolition of discrimination against women and undertakes to fulfill the objectives of the EU Treaty in all cultural policy concepts, taking into account the requirements of the Upper Austrian Municipal Equal Treatment Act." (Cultural Development Plan 2000, http://www.linz.at/kultur/kep/K-Symm.htm#Gen, as of June 30, 2011)

FIFTITU% would very much welcome it if the music programming of the next Festival 4020 and the LINZFEST 2012 were realized in the sense of gender symmetry and, in this respect, female artists in the most diverse genres and areas were made present and visible on all stages.

With kind regards
FIFTITU%
30. June 2011