This week, I am with The Ostara Project as the group tours British Columbia in honour of International Women’s Day. If you know any of the top-tier women in this JUNO-nominated jazz ensemble, you will appreciate just how much fun we are having. Last night, as the group crammed into bandleader Jodi Proznick’s hotel room, the jazz channel on Stingray Radio was playing and we bet on how long it would take to hear a tune from a female bandleader. We waited a verrryyyy long time.
Ostara tries to include a Sisters in Jazz workshop in each tour; this time, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra stepped up to arrange a full-day of teaching and playing in North Vancouver for students of all ages. Workshop topics ran the gamut from Rachel Therrien teaching Latin jazz rhythms to me talking about grant-writing and how to ask for a gig. The information is valuable but the most precious part is having six outstanding female musicians in one room, acting as a lighthouse for women and girls who love jazz and often feel alone—in their classrooms, in their ensembles, in their cities—as they study a genre where an estimated ninety percent of the professional community is male.
Representation is key to creating a better gender balance in the music industry. To help students across Canada see the faces and explore the music of leading female jazz artists, BuckingJam Palace has collaborated with the Calgary Association for the Development of Music Education (CADME) to produce a poster of Canadian Women in Jazz which will be hung in junior high and high school band rooms. You can see the poster at the bottom of this post, or on our advocacy page—located under the “About” button—or by clicking here. There are many faces that you will recognise from BJP concerts and there are faces that are missing because we needed to represent Canada’s broad geography and a wide spectrum of jazz instrumentation. While you are on the Advocacy page, check out some of the other resources listed, including the 2025 Canadian study Share the Air: A Study of Gender Representation on Canada Radio (2013-2023). If you would like more information on the ways BJP supports female-identifying artists, please be in touch: lisa@buckingjampalace.com. If you’d like to partner with BJP in supporting female-led projects, our donation form includes a box you can tick to direct your contribution to our Jane Dough Women in Music funding stream. Donations receive a tax receipt.
I look forward to the day when we don’t need a poster like this, when jazz is enriched and empowered by a balance of creativity from women and men. A time when every other song on the Stingray jazz channel is composed and performed by women. In the meantime, we continue to advocate for the creativity of women in jazz, one poster, one radio play at a time.
Download a web version of the poster.
Download a print version of the poster (great for classrooms!)
