On this International Women’s Day, composer and educator Liza Lim says it’s time for music organisations to normalise quotas and move beyond ‘special programs’ for female composers, celebratory one-off all-female music events and CD compilations.

Now’s the time, Lim says, for all musical organisations to see female composers and musicians as essential to their core business, 24/7, 365 days of the year.

“A special program is an important tool, but our goal is to be in a place where music by women is daily, essential business for every arts organisation, not a special fix-it category, or only brought out on International Women’s Day – though, of course, Women’s Day celebrations are still welcome,” Lim says.

Lisa Lim. Photo © Jasha Zube

Lim had run the Composing Women program at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music since 2018, an initiative established two years earlier to redress stark gender imbalances in Australian contemporary classical composition.

In that same year, reports from APRA AMCOS and  The University of Sydney revealed a glass ceiling for women composers. Only 15% of new works were composed by women. In the film music industry, the...