Music Panel: Addressing the gender gap in music radio

Sara Mohr-Pietsch is a broadcaster, curator and writer. She is one of the BBC's best-known classical music presenters on radio and television. She currently hosts the pioneering late night show Night Tracks on BBC Radio 3, where she has also presented Breakfast, Music Matters and the BBC Proms.  She is also Artistic Director of Dartington Music Summer School & Festival, curating her first festival in 2021. Her writing includes articles for The Guardian, and a book of choral conversations with conductor Harry Christophers, A New Heaven, published by Faber & Faber.

Stine Danving is editor and presenter at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s jazz channel P8 Jazz where she hosts the daily show ‘Jazzoom’, covering jazz news and culture politics from all around the world - including the gender balance topic. This applies both to the stories she covers as well as a constant awareness of the gender balance in the music she plays on the shows. On P8 Jazz Stine is also a member of the channel playlist committee, working for more gender equality in the music that the channel represents in general. Beyond this Stines Danving is one of the forces behind the classical P2 podcast “Women in Music” portraying 24 classical women composers who has been written out of history, and the presenter on the EBU collaboration “Women, music and gatekeeping” uncovering the causes leading to women composers’ position as a minority today.

Born in France, Francis Gay is head of music at the German public radio COSMO, Cologne/Germany, one of Germany's most respected radios, pushing global sounds to large audiences. He has been dealing with global music and emerging sounds for over 40 years. Whether as a journalist, curator or consultant, he basically deals with the meaning and role of music in processes of social change. And if there is enough time, he likes to play the most exciting global tracks as a DJ, like in his COSMO radio show Selektor.

An iconic feminist musician, producer, director and performance artist, Peaches has spent more than two decades pushing boundaries and breaking through barriers. Through music, art, film theater, television and books, she has upended stereotypes and embraced taboos, challenging social norms and patriarchal power structures. On her latest releases, she's more direct and defiant than ever.
In just the past 6 months she's taken on systemic oppression on "Flip This", celebrated the 48th anniversary of Roe v Wade with friends Cyndi Lauper, Nona Hendyrx, Linda Perry and more on Amanda Shires' "Our Problem" and last year her seminal album The Teaches of Peaches turned 20, in a retrospective NPR said it fundamentally "shifted the window for sex in pop". Now she is releasing "Pussy Mask" a scathing take on the mask-averse political choice during the pandemic.

Some other major culture moments for Peaches this past year include her "Fuck The Pain Away" duet with Dave Grohl, as well as projects with Nick Cave, Tenacious D and most recently creating Fill The Whole, an online gaming experience with award-winning directors and digital artists Pussykrew for the prestigious music and arts festival CTM in Berlin, play it here.
Peaches is currently working on new music.

A native Indonesian of Chinese descent, Rebecca Tong is Resident Conductor of the Jakarta Simfonia Orchestra. A Master’s Graduate in Orchestral Conducting from the Cincinnati Conservatory under Mark Gibson, she recently completed her two-year tenure as Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she worked extensively in assisting the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Rebecca was recently awarded First Prize, French Concert Halls & Orchestras Prize and the Arte Prize at the inaugural La Maestra Competition 2020. Further notable achievements include the 2019 Taki Award for the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (which grants the opportunity to work closely with Marin Alsop), and participating as a Conducting Fellow at the 2018 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (mentored by Cristian Măcelaru). In 2017, she was awarded the David Effron Conducting Fellowship for the Chautauqua Institution. She has participated in masterclasses with such distinguished artists as Sir Mark Elder, Leon Fleischer, Mark Shanahan, Clark Rundell and Mark Heron. Most recent engagements include the Orchestre national de Montpellier.

In 2011, Rebecca founded the Jakarta Christian Youth Orchestra, and between 2009 and 2012 was a member of music faculty at the International Reformed Evangelical Seminary. Growing up in a musical family, Rebecca experienced music from an early age and remains fascinated by connecting communities through music.