Woodstock Wraps Up Women’s History Month

By Miranda Reale

WOODSTOCK – A star-studded weekend at Bearsville Theater packed a diverse and impressive lineup of women in the music industry last weekend. To commemorate the final weekend of Women’s History Month, the introduction of “We Got The Beat: Women in Music Summit” featured three days of concerts, panel discussions and film screenings highlighting the achievements of women working with music in an array of capacities. The first panel on Saturday included a stage lined with seven women; singer-songwriters, recording engineers and producers, brought together to recognize what has been done and to set goals for the future. Among the many esteemed participants was eight time Grammy nominee recording artist Joan Osborne, who spoke to the importance of the event and the role of music before a concert held Saturday night. Speaking about the current political climate in the country, she said, “We have a lot to take care of. If we can’t talk to each other, and can’t look at each other as anything but enemies, then it’s going to be a lot harder to do, but I think that music is one of the arenas in which understanding can still take place.”

Of the many problems that have to be figured out are the sustained discrepancies between male and female wages still affecting women in 2022. In support of this, Bearsville Theater produced the event with the launch of a financial initiative made to reduce the cost of women artists renting the theater by 20%. Event organizers Holly George-Warren and Lizzie Vann hoped not only to provide an environment for participants and fans to share stories and enjoy music, but to open the doors for female artists. Accessibility has been one of the obstacles shared by the women through their stories. New York music journalist Amy Linden participated in a panel with fellow writers, Kandia Crazy Horse, Johanna Hall, and Amanda Petrusich, in which she spoke to some of the challenges encountered at the beginning of her career. “The attitude was that it was a challenging game and it’s not meant for you,” she said.

But things have changed since many of the participants got their starts, and the weekend focused on highlighting the progress of the women who created legacies under difficult circumstances. A tribute to Ronnie Spector who died at the beginning of this year, reminded performers and spectators alike of the influence and prestige left behind from a career shadowed in hardship. The music business is not for the faint-hearted, as many of the participants described, but it was clear that they were all anything but that. Expect to see this event occurring annually in Woodstock, as Holly George-Warren and Lizzie Vann hope to improve the event year after year.