Where did the name "Boys Art Music" come from?

This is the week that I've set aside to re-launch my very own little music business. The company name is Boys Art Music which has almost nothing to do with anything. Except...

It started with my skepticism about gender aesthetics. One of my professors, Susan McClary, is an avowed feminist musicologist and she was writing a book at the time that was published with the title Feminine Endings. In fact, I had encouraged her to write one of the chapters which first appeared as an article in the Minnesota Composers Forum newsletter.

Anyway, she still holds to the idea that one is able to hear a difference in female and male music. (Or at least it makes for a better story that she holds to it.) At the time, I was co-producing a monthly show with Randy Bourne on Minnesota Public Radio on Minnesota composers' music. We decided that putting the female/male aesthetics to the test would make good radio. As it turned out, we were right.

At that time, Kim D. Sherman was a local composer and was very much attracted to the idea that her music had a feminine sound and that she could hear the difference. And Paul Fetler was a professor and (is) a prominent composer who was not only skeptical of the idea but scoffed at the idea that one could hear feminine or masculine characteristics in music.

We tested the idea by randomly and anonymously playing five selections for Kim and Paul on air. If you want to know what happened...come to my blog athttp://randalldavidson.blogspot.com/ on Friday, December 11, 2009 and I will tell all and answer questions.

tee hee