The Ostrava Days 2017 festival was pervaded by an atmosphere of such overbearing toxic masculinity that I could barely hear the music. The festival lasted 10 days and served as a gathering place for avant-gardists and “risk-takers.” Of the 33 composition residents, 27 were men, and 23 were white cis men; despite the festival’s international aspirations, about a third of these men hailed from Brooklyn, Boston, or New Haven. The festival, Petr Kotik’s biennial brainchild now in its ninth iteration, had invited more white male composers with degrees from Yale than women of color.
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