A Quebec summer time music pageant with an all-male lineup has misplaced not less than one big-name act and is being criticized for ignoring feminine artists.
The backlash began on-line and intensified after widespread singer-songwriter Emile Bilodeau introduced he had dropped out of the sixteenth version of Festi-Plage de Cap-d’Espoir, on Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula.
Bilodeau mentioned Wednesday that not solely artists, however everybody within the music trade, together with pageant organizers, have a task to play to extend feminine illustration. He mentioned he couldn’t participate in an occasion that didn’t share his values.
“I work with wonderful girls and realized my craft from the very best,” Bilodeau mentioned in an announcement on Fb. “In actual fact, it’s because of them that I’m the artist, and above all, the person that I’m as we speak.”
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Festi-Plage, which might be held on July 27-30, is scheduled to showcase a wide range of musical genres, together with Quebec folks, rap and funk music. The 14 featured acts are completely male — besides Les Cowboys Fringants, a four-person band with a feminine member.
Competition organizer Ghislain Pitre mentioned on Thursday he was upset by Bilodeau’s response and shocked by the criticism.
“We didn’t see it coming,” Pitre mentioned in an interview. “We now have Les Cowboys Fringants; we’re not 100 per cent male-only.” He mentioned one of many artists, comic P-A Methot, can be placing collectively a efficiency that can embrace girls.
Pitre, nonetheless, mentioned he was unable to discover a single feminine musician or female-majority band accessible that had a musical type aligned with the pageant.
“We’re not towards girls; we checked out who was accessible and what most accurately fits our clientele,” he mentioned, including that the pageant would substitute Bilodeau with a feminine artist.
“We’re a festive pageant; we’re not an rising music pageant. Individuals are on the seashore, they’re dancing, they’re having a beer. It’s not a piano live performance.”
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Fannie Crepin, co-founder of Musique Bleue — a gaggle that promotes Quebec-made music — mentioned she finds Pitre’s rationalization to be outdated and inexcusable.
Crepin mentioned she requested a good friend earlier this week to place collectively a playlist of Quebec feminine artists, “from each musical type attainable,” to have fun Worldwide Girls’s Day.
“It took lower than one hour and she or he got here again with 100 names,” Crepin mentioned in an interview Thursday.
Crepin welcomed Bilodeau’s choice and referred to as it a primary in Quebec, saying she couldn’t recall a time when a male artist had withdrawn from a present resulting from an absence of feminine performers.
“We’ve been asking for it for thus lengthy,” Crepin mentioned. “Regardless of our efforts to advertise girls, it stays that we see a whole lot of affect when males react to inequality ? When males say they’re allies however they don’t act accordingly, we simply go round in circles.”
Crepin lamented how girls are nonetheless under-represented in industrial radio playlists and in festivals. She echoed Bilodeau’s feedback and mentioned the music trade altogether must work towards altering that actuality.
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She additionally referred to as on the provincial authorities to cease funding festivals that don’t meet gender parity necessities. “Festivals have change into the primary showcase for artists, so once they do one thing like that, it actually hurts,” Crepin mentioned.
“If festivals aren’t reserving girls, labels usually are not doing it both. Any person, someplace, has to place within the effort at one level.”
Sebastien Fournier, director of Festi Jazz worldwide de Rimouski, a pageant positioned on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, north of Quebec Metropolis, agreed with Crepin. He mentioned the trade has to begin trusting that audiences would possibly admire a greater variety of artists than what’s performed on the radio.
“It’s not as a result of the artist isn’t included by the massive industrial radios that it’s not good music that can entice a crowd,” Fournier mentioned in an interview Thursday. “There are sufficient feminine artists for them to be headliners, you simply need to have a imaginative and prescient and creativity.”
Pitre, nonetheless, mentioned his viewers prefers well-known artists. “We e-book who’s widespread,” he mentioned. “Our viewers is regional and enormous, we’re not in Montreal the place you possibly can provide you with an rising artist.”
However Fournier, who booked artists for the favored Sea Shack hostel in Gaspésie, Que., for seven years earlier than becoming a member of the Festi Jazz, mentioned the curiosity is there.
“Generally, it’s important to notice individuals are already on-site; there’s an occasion, so let’s give an opportunity to some artists,” he mentioned.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
