Women in Music UK Blog

Queensland Symphony Orchestra has just appointed the first woman music director of any of the Oz orchestras.

Sadly this event has been cancelled but please watch this space as it will be rescheduled.

Join WiMUK chair Debbie Golt on her weekly show The Outerglobe on Monday 12th October 2015 between 5-6pm on Resonance 104.4FM (Londonwide0 and resonancefm online - see links below - with special composer guests. Dr Shirley J Thompson and Issie Barratt, who are great composers as well as both being BASCA Executive Members and Women in Music UK members, join Debbie to preview the forthcoming BASCA concert and panel and the issues involved for female composers as well as highlighting  their careers. 

Shirley Thompson was the first woman in 40 years to compose and conduct a symphony and her beautiful works encompass many media from orchestral to ballet and opera. Often her Caribbean background and activist world view inform her wonderful writing. Issie Barratt composes and conducts mainly in the Jazz idiom with far reaching themes as well. She is co-founder of the National Youth Jazz Collective and received the Parliamentary Award for Jazz in 2014. Debbie Golt is well respected in the African and wider music business and consults for organisations and bands (including Caroline Trettine and Erna Chimu) as well as being a trainer and board member of Women's Radio Group. 

BASCA is presenting an event considering the role of Female Composers with a well chosen panel  and a fantastic concert on October 24th at Kings Place as part of the Equator Festival World of Women series. See the post further down this page for full details. BASCA is the  British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and currently women, including a good smattering of WiMUK members, are very well represented on most of the  Executive Committees. The CEO Vick Bain is also a woman,

The Outerglobe goes out weekly on Resonance 104.4fm on Mondays at 5pm with a repeat on Fridays at 2am.  Debbie Golt takes African music and wider arts and culture throughout the diaspora as her starting point and includes incisive, informative and entertaining interviews with movers and shakers across all arts genres and marvellous music. With Debbie Golt's passion for promoting women in music, female artists figure highly in the shows  as the normal thing as much as being searched for.  The Outerglobe is also on Mixcloud for listen again

Links:   www.resonancefm.com  worldwide (104.4FM Londonwide)  www.mixcloud.com/outerglobe  

As Women in Music UK member ,  Issie Barratt says: "Nice wee article about the three pieces Laura Jurd, Emily Saunders and I have written as part of BASCA's Kings Place's WoW gig 24th October 2015 (Mine's dedicated to JT and Ray Warleigh) Great that Jessy McCabe can be part of the panel"  

WiM UK members Jenni Rodditi, (founder member) Nicola Lefanu and (fellow founder member) Shirley Tompson are amongst the wonderful composers who have pieces in this very welcome concert and event presented by BASCA as part of the Equator Festival Women of the World (founded by another WiM UK member - Pritti Paintal) at Kings Place, London

Link to article : www.londonjazznews.com/2015/10/preview-issie-barratt-laura-jurd-emily.html 

The BASCA event is in the What's On section of Women in Music UK's website. Why not add your own event featuring women music creators ? It's very easy and additions are promptly added on www.womeninmusic.org.uk

Tickets are still available via  www.basca.org.uk/basca-events/equator-festival-women-of-the-world/

The Marie Claire magazine Women at the Top Awards  celebrate inspirational female innovators from business, arts to technology & medicine.  Emily Rawson is a much in demand DJ with brand support galore who aims to feminise the music industry, especially the DJ world. She founded Rock the Belles a female DJ collective to give a platform for women DJs and challenge the predominantly male scene and mentors women who want to 'make it big on the music scene. '

Follow this link to find out more http://www.supadupaflylove.com/marie-claire/

Congratulations from Women in Music UK  http://www.womeninmusic.org.uk

Subject: Ladies' Orchestras

I hope that among the membership of Women in Music, particular in the field of academic research, there may be someone who can add to the little knowledge I have about a particular ladies’ orchestra.

There is a personal slant to my enquiry in that an ancestor of my wife Fiona was leader and soloist in the orchestra – Florence Maybury. The orchestra in which Florence served as lead violin was billed as “Madame Marie Levante’s celebrated Orchestra of Ladies” during the First World War when touring town halls and concert halls on morale-boosting ventures. It was clearly in its day a revolutionary band for what (at the time) were “unladylike” instruments – such as the trombone – were included. Nor was it just a wartime gimmick to have a women-only band, for Mme Levante had started recruiting for what was then a “Bohemian Band of Women” back in 1894.

If the names of Madame Marie Levant and Florence Maybury stir any recollections of historical research I would look forward to your reply. And even if the names mean nothing, at least I hope this may generate interest in an area of historic significance.

Best wishes

(Dr) Paul Seeley.