Mezzosoprano Bettina Smith, Professor of singing at the Faculty of Performing Arts, University of Stavanger, is during the spring of 2022 initializing her project highlighting women in the arts.
Recently granted by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills
Voices of Women (VOW) is an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Higher Education project lead by Professor Bettina Smith in collaboration with Associate professor Friederike Wildschutz and Associate professor Lise K Meling. The VOW is a joint project with The University of Stavanger, UiT The Arctic University of Norway and fellow German and Dutch institutions.
The main purpose of the VOW project is to contribute to common EU values in relation to cultural awareness which, in several areas of the art world, has thus far been skewed in the sense that women’s outputs have not received their fair share of attention, analysis, interpretation, and performance.
The project aims to contextualize inclusiveness, cross-country training and civic engagement in a disciplinary field which for centuries has provided the heart of the European story: the Arts. The VOW will provide innovative higher education modules which reinforce interaction between practice, research, and EU policy.
The focus is on Women’s Voices as an exemplification of the aims to train future generations in co-creating knowledge for a resilient, inclusive and sustainable society.
Two main objectives
The VOW project has two main objectives:
1 A contribution to the familiarization of higher education students, music and art audiences, and the general public, with musical works created by women. The higher education contextualization of this objective will be achieved as an approach for the whole institution: by focusing on the VOW repertory, its performance, its analysis and related research and dissemination initiatives in the involved institutions. VOW will achieve a wide-spread “ripple-effect” aimed at a deeper level of inclusivity of all voices as equal contributors to the artistic canon.
2. Establishing a European, international VOW network and corresponding “Roadmap for the promotion of Voices of Women”.
Voices of Women (VOW), juni 2022
De første studentaktivitetene i prosjektet VOW finner sted i Stavanger 23-24 juni 2022. Hovedfokus her vil bli mesterklasseformatet, hvor studenter og ansatte fra partnerinstitusjonene jobber aktivt med repertoar av kvinnelige komponister. I tillegg vil det holdes forelesninger og workshops i relaterte emner. Informasjon og påmelding her.