THE JEJU 2024 INTERNATIONAL BRASS AND PERCUSSION COMPETITION

Beginning Coverage with a Focus on Euphonium and Composer Choice

I covered the Jeju International Brass Competition 2023 pretty extensively about this time last year. It’s happening again right now.

I (and others) rode them pretty hard last year about their 28-member jury which completely excluded women and non-binary people from positions of power. There were a lot of pathetic statements and excuses from the Big Fancy Men of the jury.

This year, it seems the competition added a couple of singular women to two juries to avoid similar criticism. It seems like tokenism to me, but you can decide for yourself.

The Jurors

The 2024 competition is for the following instruments: euphonium, bass trombone, tuba, and percussion. The 28-member jury, with seven jurors per category, includes one woman juror each in bass trombone and tuba this year. Everyone else, including the entire euphonium and percussion juries, is male.

The Repertoire

With One Very Problematic Specific Composer Choice

Euphonium requires 4 compulsory pieces. All are written by men.

Bass trombone requires 4 compulsory pieces, all written by men. There is a fifth piece that must be chosen from two pieces, also both by men.

Tuba requires 5 compulsory pieces, all written by men. There is a sixth piece that must be chosen from three pieces, all by men composers. Of special note is that one of those three men composers is Mike Forbes. Forbes weathered some disturbing allegations in 2006/7. His actions are well-known in the community because of the public record of his court case. Nevertheless, he works as a successful teacher, arranger, and composer. The International Tuba-Euphonium Association even gave him their stamp of approval with a commission in 2019.

Percussion requires three pieces, all by men composers. The sole required piece in the final is written by one of the jurors, Ludwig Albert. One other requirement is a free choice piece under 10 minutes, so that can be written by anyone. There are three “pick one” categories. The first contains five compositions, and 2/5 are written by women composers; the second also contains 5 compositions, 0/5 are by women composers, the third contains four compositions, 0/4 of which are by women composers.

For euphonium, bass trombone, and tuba, there are a total of 13 compulsory pieces, all by men composers—a number of whom are not dead or white. Additionally, another 5 pieces must be chosen from, all by men composers, one of whom has weathered serious allegations of misconduct and “admitted to engaging in a sexual act with an undergraduate student who was baby-sitting at his home.”

For percussion, the choices were a bit more gender-diverse, but still, one could compete in the competition by playing seven pieces without touching a single composition by a woman composer.

The Competitors

Euphonium

The euphonium competitors admitted to the competition show a healthy number of women, approximately more than half of the 55 competitors admitted.

However, the all-male jury with its all-male repertoire excluded all of these women by the second round, which was all-male. Were all of these jurors, the type of men who would show up to sit on an all-male jury willingly, completely free of bias? Was this just an accident, that the “best” players were all men, just this one time?

Here is the announcement of the results of the second round by jury member, Steven Mead, on his Facebook page.

Mead’s mention of the instruments the finalists are playing is of particular interest because according to Besson’s website, Steven Mead has “has been an artist, designer and clinician with Besson for many years, and is acclaimed for his contribution to the success of the Besson euphoniums.” According to the same website, Mead also was “Artistic Director of the Jeju International Wind Ensemble Festival, South Korea (2013-2020).” and is “also owner of the popular low brass web store.” I looked the webstore up, and it appears to sell Besson parts. Perhaps there is a conflict of interest here, to promote instruments one sells through the finalists of a competition one is heavily involved in.

Here is Mead with the 2024 Jeju Euphonium jury, as taken from his Facebook page:

Here is the euphonium jury screenshot from the competition’s official page:

I will follow up on the other instrumental categories soon. But spoiler alert: while each instrument has a different gender breakdown of initial competitors, the three finalists in all four instruments made for 12 all-male finalists. Is anyone surprised with this sort of jury, repertoire, and moral corruption?