A revival of Ethel Smyth's comic opera The Boatswain’s Mate is being performed at the Arcola Theatre in London as part of the Grimeborn Opera Festival.
It is performed by Spectra Ensemble and directed by Cecilia Stinton
Songs and stories from the Sommerville Collection, making connections between women scientists, novelists, artists and musicians, linked to Mary Sommerville, performed by Frances Lynch.
Sunday 24th July 2022, 7.30 PM, Stroud Green Festival, Holy Trinity Church, Glanville Gardens, London N4 4EL.
www.electricvoicetheatre.co.uk
The London Oriana Choir, Edinburgh Singers, Southern Spirit Singers, and Archer Academy will perform music by women composers, including new commission by Hannah Kendall. The programme looks really great, get to this if you can.
BBC research shows that only 13% of festival headliners are female despite campaigns and promises for a 50:50 gender balance by 2022.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-61512053
The Musicians' Union responds, noting the need to address wider problems than just the festivals themselves, and the damage caused to the industry by this lack of representation.
JAM’s Masterclass Series 2022 is a composition course in choral writing, aimed at emerging UK-based composers. It is free and open to all UK-based composers aged 18+.
Composers are asked to submit a sketch by Friday 20th May 2022. These should be
· A maximum of 50 bars and
· written for SATB to SSAATTBB choir, a cappella.
· All texts must be in the public domain.
· Composers who submit must be able to attend the workshop in person to participate
On 9th July, a maximum of six composers, who have submitted sketches, will be offered the chance to take part in a choral workshop with VOCES8 and composer Paul Mealor. The workshop will take place at St Leonard's Church, Hythe, Kent.
To watch bite-size choral writing videos by VOCES8 and for full details of this free masterclass series please visit https://jamconcert.org/jam-masterclass-series-2022/.
“Nurturing emerging composers is extremely important to me. JAM’s Masterclass Series does exactly this.” Paul Mealor, composer and JAM President.
The six composers who have participated in the workshop will then be asked to submit their completed pieces to JAM by 2nd September.
All six pieces will be performed by the VOCES8 Foundation in a recorded, public concert at St. Bride’s Church, Fleet Street in October. At the end of this performance one of the composers will be awarded the President's Commission of £500. The commission will be premiered at JAM's 'Music of Our Time' concert in March 2023.
Two premieres, a newly commissioned brass quintet by Janet Wheeler, and The Hand that Made Us Is Divine by Kathryn Rose, feature in this concert that opens JAM's 2022 season, its first Music of Our Time concert since March 2019.
The full programme is
The
Lord is my Light by William
Harmer
Clarion
Song (Op59) by Christopher
Best
In
Drifts of Sleep by Richard
Peat
The Hand that Made Us Is Divine by Kathryn Rose
Carol of the Passion by Philip LancasterNew
Commission (for brass quintet) by Janet
Wheeler
The Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge
Onyx Brass | Simon Hogan, organ | Mark Le Brocq, tenor | Grahame Davies, narrator
Michael Bawtree, conductor
7.30pm, Wednesday 23rd March
St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8AU
Women in Music would like to congratulate composer and pianist Dr Tanya Ekanayaka and all those involved in the release of this marvellous collection.
Dr Tanya Ekanayaka - by Nadine Ishaq
Tanya writes
It gives me great pleasure to share with you, news of a unique release in celebration of International Women’s Day 2022 on 8th March.
A
limited-edition 10-CD boxset titled, 3 CENTURIES OF FEMALE COMPOSERS
containing works for solo piano by some of the greatest female piano composers
through history is being released worldwide today (4th March). Many of you will
likely recognise many of the composers and some of the music in this set can be
accessed entirely free!
I’m deeply
honoured that one of the CDs, (CD 9), comprises my own compositions for solo
piano mostly composed during lockdown in 2020, and performed by me. Not
least because of the beautiful context am I touched by this inclusion, but also
because a core aspect of my creative practice as a South Asian woman
composer-pianist with a very multicultural lived musical background,
focuses on broadening the musical imprint of the piano across cultures and
‘spaces’ not traditionally associated with the pianistic canon.
The set
is being released by Naxos Records (Grand Piano) and the following Naxos
Records web-link contains full details https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=GP897X
The release note published by Naxos Records on their official web-page dedicated to the release and full list of composers featured are as follows:
“Ranging from the 18th century to the music of our time, this collection of critically acclaimed recordings explores the significant contribution to solo piano repertoire made by a wide variety of women composers. These rare and important pieces include the works of the celebrated pianist Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy and of Hélène de Montgeroult, whose sonatas are distinctive additions to the Classical and early Romantic periods. Maria Szymanowska’s deft dances contrast with the fearsome demands of Teresa Carreño, herself a great virtuoso. Vítězslava Kaprálová was the most important female Czech composer of the 20th century, while Agathe Backer Grøndahl was one of Norway’s most respected composer-pianists. Tanya Ekanayaka continues the lineage in her own diverse and hybrid pieces.” – NAXOS RECORDS
Composers included (in alphabetical order) –
Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska
Amy Beach
Anna Bon
Lili Boulanger
Anne-Louise Boyvin d'Hardancourt Brillon de Jouy
Teresa Carreño
Cécile Chaminade
Tanya Ekanayaka
Chiquinha Gonzaga
Agathe Backer Grøndahl
Vítězslava Kaprálová
Emma Kodály
Haruna Miyake
Hélène-Antoinette-Marie de Nervo de Montgeroult
Tatiana Nikolayeva
Dora Pejačević
Florence Beatrice Price
Clara Schumann
Maria
Szymanowska
And finally, here’s a little preview video:
BBC Radio 3 is playing music written by women all day in celebration of International Women's Day. Composers include:
Composer of the week Henriette Bosmans.
Lunchtime concert by the BBC Singers and organist Anna Lapwood with music by Kristina Arakelyan, June Nixon, Kerensa Briggs,
Sarah MacDonald, Melissa Dunphy, Cecilia McDowall, Judith Bingham and Ghislaine Reece-Trapp.
Afternoon concert including music by Joan Tower, Francesca Caccini, Lotta Wennäkoski, Isabella Leonarda, Erika Fox, Dora Pejacevic, Thea Musgrave, Dora Pejačević, and Elfrida Andrée.
In tune mixtape includes works by Doreen Carwithen, Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Errollyn Wallen, Clara Schumann and Laura Mvula.
Radio 3 in concert gives music by Maddalena Casulana and Barbara Strozzi.
Well done radio 3, and we would like more of this every day.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/schedules/bbc_radio_three/2022-03-08
For International Women's Day, electric voice theatre are presenting this online concert of vocal music that celebrates women in the ambit of the nineteenth century astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville.
Works to be performed include
Cheryl Frances-Hoad Something More Than Mortal (Words by Ada Lovelace)
Lynne Plowman Seven Dark Lines
Eliza Flower (1803 – 1846) Now Pray We for our Country and Rebecca’s Hymn
Isabella Scott Gibson (1786–1838) Row Gondolier and Lochnagar
Helen Blackwood, Lady Dufferin (1807 – 1867) The Charming Woman
Nicola Lefanu Wishing from “Rory’s Rounds”
Frances M Lynch ADA BAB(BLE)
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/songs-stories-from-the-somerville-connexion-tickets-266033773177