Women who break barriers

by Evelien Lindeboom

As one of the few women working in a predominantly male environment, Holland Festival Associate Artist Hildur Guðnadóttir developed a distinctive compositional voice of her own. She gained international recognition through her scores for films such as Joker (2019) and Tár (2022), drawing inspiration from the pioneering electronic musicians who came before her. Today, Guðnadóttir has become a role model for new generations and continues to inspire the Holland Festival programming team through both her work and her perspective on the performing arts.

Creative detours and alternative forms

In male-dominated environments, where access has often been consciously or unconsciously restricted, women have long been required to find less visible or indirect routes forward. In these margins, where little was predetermined, space emerged for experimentation. In Lisa Rovner’s documentary Sisters With Transistors, Laurie Anderson guides us through the largely forgotten early history of electronic music. Remarkably, many women were involved in its development, creating entirely new sonic worlds through their experiments.

Many of these women were classically trained musicians who, often out of necessity, became the first to look—and more importantly, listen—beyond established conventions. They engaged with a form of music that did not yet exist and with sounds that had not even been recognised as music.

Role models

The documentary highlights figures such as Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016), founder of deep listening, and Maryanne Amacher (1938–2009), known for her immersive multimedia installations in which the ear itself becomes a producer of sound. Through their intuitive creativity, they became a major source of inspiration for countless composers who followed. Their determination to pursue their calling, despite the restrictive expectations placed upon women, was extraordinary.

Daphne Oram (1925–2003), another of these pioneers, reflects in the documentary: 'When I was studying music, there really were no role models for female composers. Overall, we are gaining more visibility, but it’s two steps forward and one step back.'

Her observation remains relevant today. Much progress has been made, yet significant inequalities persist. In 2021, The Guardian responded to Oram’s remark by noting: 'This remains an ongoing problem in the industry. Hildur Guðnadóttir became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Original Score for Joker, but the number of female composers in film remains absurdly low. It has fallen from 6% to 4% this year.'

During Holland Festival, alongside major performances of her own compositions, including Where To From and Chernobyl, Guðnadóttir will rehearse Passing Remark, a new work of her own, with conservatoire students. She finds teaching inspiring - not because she wishes to tell students exactly what to do, but because she wants to encourage them to step beyond existing structures in their own way and to look beyond the written and unwritten rules that often govern conservatoire education. As she explains: 'Students are often taught that there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of doing things. But I genuinely don’t believe that. A single note can be approached in countless ways. It’s all about perspective.'

Blowing up power structures

One reason women played such a significant role in electronic music is that the field was largely uncharted territory. As early composer Laurie Spiegel observed: 'Technology is a tremendous source of liberation because it blows up power structures.' She continued: 'Women were naturally drawn to electronic music because you didn’t need acceptance from male-dominated institutions - the radio stations, record labels, concert halls or funding bodies. You could create something with electronics and present your music directly to an audience, and that gives you enormous freedom.'

In 1974, composer Hans Werner Henze created the song cycle Voices, drawing on political and protest texts by resistance fighters, playwrights and poets such as Bertolt Brecht. Henze described the work as giving voice to artists engaged with social and political realities. It was an admirable ambition, yet one with a blind spot: his collection consisted entirely of texts written by men. Holland Festival now brings this important work back to life, enriched by contributions from contemporary female composers, each offering an artistic perspective on the world today.

One of the composers invited by Holland Festival to create a new work for Voices chose not to foreground her own voice but that of another. Together with performer Nora Fischer, Dutch-Israeli composer Karmit Fadael created My Memories Are Louder Than Your Missiles, based on a poem by a young doctor from Gaza. Their reasoning is clear: 'When two women with Israeli and Jewish backgrounds are asked to present a protest song in 2026, there seems to be only one possible response: an indictment of the unimaginable violence that continues, in part, in their name.'

Domestic craft or expression

The female perspective constantly evolves according to time and place. What if your mother was an accomplished seamstress and you have no desire to sew? Does that make her less of a feminist and you more of one? Or was textile work once a vital means through which women could express creativity, despite receiving little recognition for it? In Honor, Suzanne Bocanegra reflects, with both humour and sharpness, on the differing histories of men and women and on the ambiguous meaning of the word 'honor', which has rarely worked in women’s favour. She guides audiences through milestones of art history and darker episodes such as witch burnings, while also reflecting on her mother’s passion for needlework. With characteristic understatement, she notes: 'Historically, men wove for profit. The men who created the famous Honor tapestry were paid professionals working within tightly regulated guilds. Women were forbidden from joining those guilds. Women wove at home, for their own use.'

A similarly complex relationship with domesticity emerges in the opera Qaqnas. Created by composer Huba de Graaff, featuring an entirely female cast and Dutch-Kurdish singer-songwriter Naaz Mohammad in the lead role, the opera centres on the Kurdish slogan 'Woman, Life, Freedom'. The women inhabit a space that is simultaneously a kitchen and an electronic music studio—two environments that have offered different forms of liberation: safety and creative expression. Singing in Kurdish, a language once prohibited, becomes an act of resistance. Their commitment to creativity and self-expression transforms them into firebirds, phoenixes - Qaqnas.

Listening

To move beyond prescribed, supposedly safe spaces outside male strongholds, women’s voices must be heard—by both men and women alike. One of the great pioneers of listening was Pauline Oliveros. An outspoken feminist, she made a clear statement in the 1960s with Bye Bye Butterfly, an electronically manipulated version of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, which she described as: 'Not only saying goodbye to nineteenth-century music, but also to the system of polite morality of that era and the institutionalised oppression of women that accompanied it.'

Oliveros expanded musical boundaries through her use of accordion drones and electronics, inspiring new generations to deepen their practice of listening. Through her text-based compositions known as Sonic Meditations, developed with a women’s ensemble, she laid the foundations of what would later become her Deep Listening method. One meditation reads: 'Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the soles of your feet become ears.' In 1971, Oliveros explained that the meditations sought to expand consciousness and serve 'humanitarian purposes, particularly healing', in the context of the Vietnam War and the social unrest surrounding it.

As Holland Festival Associate Artist, Guðnadóttir argues that deep listening remains essential in 2026 because it leads to empathy, which in turn enables transformation. Ahead of the festival she reflected: 'It’s unfortunate that empathy is often dismissed as "weak" or "woke". Right now, we need empathy more than ever.' And: 'To truly listen, you first need to become quiet within yourself. Cultivating empathy means setting aside your own thoughts for a moment and creating space for the experiences and perspectives of others. Art, music and film are wonderful ways of helping people listen to other stories, other perspectives and other ways of perceiving the world.' Her own compositions frequently serve as exercises in deep listening and contemplation, often exploring the darker sides of human nature. As she puts it: 'What draws me to darker, more complex characters who are not immediately likeable is my desire to understand human nature.'

Empathy

By practising deep listening through art—even when what we hear is difficult or uncomfortable—we become better able to understand different perspectives. Several artists at Holland Festival choose to address injustice in specific parts of the world. Tanya Tagaq’s multidisciplinary work Split Tooth: Saputjiji, for example, centres the experiences of Inuit women in northern Canada. Drawing on her own journals and stories from her community, she combines personal testimony with political engagement, addressing the injustices of colonialism in works such as Fuck War. She dedicates her work to Indigenous women, including those who have been raped and murdered. As Tagaq explains: 'Art isn’t, for me, "Oh, I think I’ll make something beautiful." It’s: "I need to get all of this out." That’s why what I make isn’t necessarily… pleasant.'

When discussions turn to feminism, women often take centre stage, but men also have an important role to play. Director Ali Chahrour’s When I Saw the Sea features three women whose personal stories reveal the exploitation of migrant workers in Lebanon. Their testimonies give voice to countless others living under the same conditions and highlight the urgent need for systemic change. In Holland Festival’s podcast series, produced with weekly opinion magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, Chahrour discusses how he incorporates Lebanon’s current reality into his work, including voice messages he receives from family and loved ones during wartime. He describes his world as: 'an absolute nightmare, very similar to what is happening in Gaza.' Despite evacuation warnings in parts of Beirut, he refuses to leave: 'I only leave to travel and present my work. I want to be present with my team, now more than ever.'

Art and activism

When artist and pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama became involved, alongside Rebecca Gomperts, in an intensive exchange between artists, thinkers and makers about bodily autonomy, they arrived at a shared conviction: 'My body belongs to me.' From this statement emerged WE ARE THE HOUSE, a continuation of an earlier salon on the same subject, now transformed into a collaborative performance in which different art forms meet. Each contributing artist reflects on how women’s bodies are so often politicised, with profound consequences for women’s freedom and autonomy. Mukaiyama recalls the deep guilt and shame she experienced after having an abortion when she was young: 'I always felt that whenever something went wrong, somehow it was punishment for having had an abortion.' Meeting Gomperts helped her realise how unjust and unnecessary those feelings were. It inspired her to speak out alongside others through words, visual art and music.

Joy as a form of strength

In Atomic Joy, Ana Pi works with eight young performers from the Paris street dance scene, drawing inspiration from the energy of dance battles. Born in Brazil and based in France, Pi connects painful histories with visions of a hopeful collective future. The performance draws on dance practices from the Transatlantic African diaspora, where movement has been passed down through generations, often in times of struggle. While that history remains present, the work is equally concerned with the future. Every gesture connects memory with a longing for a shared horizon. Supported by music from CHASSOL, intense joy emerges from resilience and creates bonds that actively resist destructive forces from outside. In Amsterdam, Pi will also lead a workshop entitled Joy Is Not a Metaphor, inviting twenty young dancers to explore joy as a tool for imagining new forms of togetherness and collective possibility.

Without fixed boundaries

Theatre duo Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot describe all of their work as explicitly feminist. For the happening HOLOBIONT, they collaborate with Jef Van Gestel and a group of international performers who are constantly in transition in a multitude of ways. Audiences are invited to move freely, become lost and let go. Van der Schoot explains: 'We are creating a place where power structures are temporarily suspended, where we continuously question and shift the boundaries of identity without needing to explain or defend them. We are all fluid—not only in terms of gender identity, but in our entire being. Just as a self-fertilising kiwi plant in a vegetable garden requires polyculture—with different plants, colours, shapes, families and root systems—we humans also need as much diversity as possible. Fluidity is, for us, the ultimate form of existence. Once we truly achieve that, we will no longer need feminism.'

This translation has been adapted into fluent, editorial British English while preserving the tone, nuance and cultural context of the original Dutch text.

Hildur Guðnadóttir in Holland Festival

diverse dates

Atomic Joy

Ana Pi

5-7 June, Frascati

Split Tooth: Saputjij

Tanya Tagaq

7 June, Muziekgebouw

When I Saw the Sea

Ali Chahrour

10-14 June, Theater Bellevue

Qaqnas