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McGill's Repertoire lists - specific instruments - by BIPOC composers

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McGill's Repertoire lists - specific instruments - by BIPOC composers

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Useful lists for when you're trying to find repertoire for your own instrument

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Guides: Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC) musicians: Repertoire for specific instruments and ensembles

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Use this guide to explore the musical traditions, compositions, and scholarship of Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC) individuals. Discover repertoire lists of works by BIPOC composers for specific instruments

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If you find yourself in London ... British Library Exhibition 500 years of Black British Music

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If you find yourself in London ... British Library Exhibition 500 years of Black British Music

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The BL is five minutes' walk from Euston. Their exhibitions are always good - do drop in!

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Beyond the Bassline is a map through Black music in Britain. Transporting experiences give way to absorbing soundscapes, artworks and films produced by artists and collectives across the UK. Archival footage leads into spectacular costumes, interactive displays, and of course, music. And at the conclusion of the exhibition, Touching Bass, a South London-based musical movement and curatorial platform, present a new multi-screen film installation.

Dive into letters from 18th-century composer Ignatius Sancho, glittering props and outfits of glamorous performers, records from the likes of Fela Kuti and Shirley Bassey, nostalgic video archive of grime's golden era captured on Risky Roadz DVD and the equipment that Jamal Edwards used to start SB.TV, the industry-defining YouTube channel dedicated to Black British Music. Here, alongside over 200 exhibits, they are woven into union as you journey through an ever-evolving and ever-expanding history.

Ticket pricing
On the first Wednesday of every month the British Library are running Pay What You Can days where what you pay for entry is up to you (minimum £1). Select your preferred Pay What You Can day, select the required number of tickets for £1 each and add a donation to your overall ticket purchase price.

British Library Members go free with a guest. Select your free tickets and proceed to book, you don't need to log in. Please bring your Membership card with you when you visit. Find out more about becoming a British Library Member.

Other Concessions are available, please see the ticket options for more details and select the ticket type you require. The British Library also offers discounts for groups of 10+, these will automatically discount once added to your basket.

ICOM and NMDC organisation cards are accepted for free entry into this exhibition up until Sunday 11 August, there is no need to pre-book, please visit the Library will your card for entry, subject to availability.

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Beyond the Bassline is a map through Black music in Britain. Transporting experiences give way to absorbing soundscapes, artworks and films produced by artists and collectives across the UK. Archival footage leads into spectacular costumes, interactive displays, and of course, music.

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A lady forgotten by time ...

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British Music Society - Founded in 1979, the British Music Society is dedicated to promoting and preserving Britain's musical heritage with particular emphasis on 20th century composers through recordings, publications and events

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In the run-up to International Women's Day, Durham students are celebrating the music of an alumna whose composing career began at the university 70 years ago.

Ailsa Dixon (1932-2017), who studied music at Durham in the 1950s, is one of the many women composers who have been sidelined in musical history. Only a handful of her works were performed in her lifetime, until in 2017 her anthem These Things Shall Be was chosen for premiere as part of a project to highlight the work of female composers.

Now Ailsa's music is returning to Durham as part of an enterprising performance project convened by Durham students Dana Al-Tajer, President of the university's Keyboard Society, and Sophie Loftus, President of the Chamber Music Society.

Hosted by St Mary's, the celebration of her music at this event entitled These Things Shall Be: Ailsa Dixon will be held in Kenworthy Hall on 6th March at 7.30pm and will feature the most wide-ranging programme of her works ever to be performed in a single concert.

Many of these works were still in manuscript, and some will be premieres. The evening will include a discussion of Ailsa's music with her daughter Josie Dixon and members of the music department.

Tickets are free of charge and can be reserved online at the Durham Student Theatre website.

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Durham students mark female composer - British Music Society

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In the run-up to International Women's Day, Durham students are celebrating the music of an alumna whose composing career began at the university 70 years ago...

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Celebrating Women Musicians (study day, 8 March 2024

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Celebrating Women Musicians (study day, 8 March 2024

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Happening in the British Library. A must if you have a spare day to visit London!

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Amazing guy. If only we had met him!

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Benjamin Zephaniah: Writer, poet and Peaky Blinders actor dies aged 65

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Zephaniah, who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumour, is remembered as a “beautiful human being”.

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We are very excited to order this book for our library!

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Becoming a Composer a book by ERROLLYN WALLEN.

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I am a composer. A composer of classical music. Quite honestly I am not quite sure how that happened to a girl born in Belize and brought up in Tottenham . . . It is clear that composing found me. It crept up on me and wouldn’t let me out of its grasp.Now a leading international composer and a singe…

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The Whittaker Library has just acquired the music for Kaija Saariaho's cello octet, Neiges.

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For 8 violoncellos.

"Rev. 24.2.98"--Score, p. 1.

"Commande de Ville de Beauvais pour les Rencontres Internationales d'Ensembles de Violoncelles 1998."

Includes performance instructions in English.

Nuages de neige -- Etoile de neige -- Etoile de neige 2 -- Aiguilles de glace -- Fleurs de neige.

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Details for: Neiges : [for eight cellos] / › Royal Conservatoire of Scotland catalog

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For 8 violoncellos. "Rev. 24.2.98"--Score, p. 1. "Commande de Ville de Beauvais pour les Rencontres Internationales d'Ensembles de Violoncelles 1998." Includes performance instructions in English. Nuages de neige -- Etoile de neige -- Etoile de neige 2 -- Aiguilles de glace -- Fleurs de neige.

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THE [Times Higher Education] post: The big picture: decolonising beyond the curriculum

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THE [Times Higher Education] post: The big picture: decolonising beyond the curriculum

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How decolonisation can be applied and advanced across different areas of higher education

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The big picture: decolonising beyond the curriculum

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White Women Benefit Most from Affirmative Action

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White Women Benefit Most from Affirmative Action

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An interesting post from Teen Vogue

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This article is part of In Session: The Teen Vogue Lesson Plan. Find the full lesson plan .

What do you think of when you hear the term "affirmative action"?

When I ask students this question, the replies I get most often include "racial equality," "racial justice," "racial discrimination," "racial preferences," or "quotas." Rarely do people mention gender. So it comes as a surprise to many to discover that white women have benefited more from affirmative action programs and policies than any other demographic.

It's not an accident that conversations about affirmative action tend to center on race as opposed to gender. Instead, it's a predictable outcome of a campaign by well-funded and organized opponents of race-based civil rights programs in response to legal changes that resulted from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

As it became clear that these legal changes were imminent, wealthy white conservatives (with famous family names like Coors, DeVos, Scaife, and Hunt) mobilized massive resources to reverse the gains of civil rights initiatives, in general, and affirmative action, specifically. Part of their strategy included a national public media campaign designed to create white opposition to affirmative action policies by associating the term "affirmative action" with quotas or racial preferences that they said favored people of color and discriminated against white people.

But, in fact, few realize that the term affirmative action originated as a benign phrase used by presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to indicate that the government needed to take purposeful action, or act affirmatively, to end discrimination on the basis of race and gender. Eventually, a multitude of policies and practices designed to remedy systematic racist and sexist discrimination came to be referred to under the umbrella term affirmative action.

Affirmative action came to signify policies as diverse as plans to recruit or advertise jobs in communities of color, and programs designed for employers to identify and correct the under-representation of women in particular jobs.

But right-wing opponents of affirmative action focused national attention on race-based, rather than gender-based, affirmative action. And they successfully cultivated widespread white opposition to the core ideas of affirmative action. So we shouldn't be surprised that white women, who may not even realize how they have benefited from affirmative action policies, are also some of the fiercest opponents of affirmative action.

It can be difficult to measure the extent to which different groups have benefited from affirmative action precisely because it's an umbrella term that covers a wide range of policies and programs. But there are clear structural indicators that reveal that white women have benefited from these policies more than any other group.

For example, when we look at the progress made in higher education to create more racially inclusive and representative campuses, we see that progress has been quite slow. Statistics reveal that Latinos and African Americans are still underrepresented today in university admissions and graduation rates, especially in four-year colleges.

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White Women Benefit Most From Affirmative Action

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This article is part of In Session: The Teen Vogue Lesson Plan. Find the full lesson plan . What do you think of when you hear the term "affirmative action"? When I ask students this question, the replies I get most often include "racial equality," "racial justice," "racial discrimination," "racial preferences," or "quotas."

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44 minutes' audio - radio programme, 21 June 2023.  'Maria Callas (1823-1977) and Adelina Patti (1843-1914) are two of the performers whose images are on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum's Diva. Professor Peggy Reynolds and Dr Ditlev Rindom have been to visit the exhibition which runs from opera, through films like Cleopatra, to pop performers such as Grace Jones, Lizzo and Cher. But what about performers from an earlier era ? Brianna Robertson-Kirkland shares her research, whilst Michael Twaits shares what the idea of Diva means to drag performers. Naomi Paxton hosts.'

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As the V&A opens an exhibition about performers, Naomi Paxton discusses what makes a diva.

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A web portal marking the arrival of the Empire Windrush, 75 years on. Podcasts and much more!

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Thursday 22 June is Windrush Day, marking 75 years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush in the UK.

The Windrush passenger list is one of the iconic documents in our collection. It lists more than 1,000 people of all ages who disembarked the ship at the Essex port of Tilbury on 22 June 1948, almost a month after it had set sail from Jamaica. The Windrush would ultimately lend its name to an entire generation of people who made similar journeys to Britain between 1947 and 1971. The passenger list - which includes mechanics, tailors, carpenters, housing domestics and engineers - is currently on public view on the first floor of our building throughout June in our 'Stories Unboxed' display, and is one of the highlights of our Windrush 75 commemorations.

Other activities arranged to mark the anniversary include:

A new portal signposting all of our updated and existing resources relating to Windrush, including learning resources for schools

This Saturday (17 June) we will host Windrush Stories, a free family history event featuring a number of pop-up talks and a display of other documents from our collection

A live schools broadcast with Baroness (Floella) Benjamin, who came to Britain from Trinidad with her family in 1960

On Thursday 22 June (Windrush Day) members of our team will be at Tilbury Docks as part of a major community event to mark the day of the 75 th anniversary

A new Caribbean family history research guide and other blogs and digital content to help understand the Windrush story

A special episode of our On The Record podcast, exploring some of the figures and key moments from the era

A new artwork inspired by the Windrush-related records we hold, by Sierra Leonean visual artist and designer Ngadi Smart, now on display on our ground floor

A new audio drama in production with Tamasha Theatre Company, created with input from community groups around the country and due for broadcast later this year.

Emmajane Avery, Director of Public Engagement at The National Archives, said: "Through our activities and events in June, we hope to offer people the opportunity to learn more about the history of the Windrush contained in the records that we hold, as well as explore their own personal migration stories."

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Marking the arrival of the Empire Windrush 75 years on - The National Archives

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Thursday 22 June is Windrush Day, marking 75 years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush in the UK. The Windrush passenger list is one of the iconic documents in our collection. It lists more than 1,000 people of all ages who disembarked the ship at the Essex port of Tilbury on 22 June 1948, [...]

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Composer of the month at publisher Theodore Presser, June 2023

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Freshly out in May 2023 - we'll be getting a copy in due course!

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Hear about the story behind Folk Tunes from the Women from @kathryntickell on @BBCInTune (44 mins in) https://t.co/ZWZQ7TYCoD #FolkTunesfromtheWomen

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In Tune - Emma Smith, Kathryn Tickell - BBC Sounds

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Sean Rafferty with Emma Smith and Kathryn Tickell.

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Hear about the story behind Folk Tunes from the Women from @kathryntickell on @BBCInTune (44 mins in) https://t.co/ZWZQ7TYCoD #FolkTunesfromtheWomen

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Hear about the story behind Folk Tunes from the Women from @kathryntickell on @BBCInTune (44 mins in) https://t.co/ZWZQ7TYCoD #FolkTunesfromtheWomen
— Faber Music Publications (@FaberMusic) May 10, 2023

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In Tune - Emma Smith, Kathryn Tickell - BBC Sounds

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Sean Rafferty with Emma Smith and Kathryn Tickell.

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Hear about the story behind Folk Tunes from the Women from @kathryntickell on @BBCInTune (44 mins in) https://t.co/ZWZQ7TYCoD #FolkTunesfromtheWomen

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Hear about the story behind Folk Tunes from the Women from @kathryntickell on @BBCInTune (44 mins in) https://t.co/ZWZQ7TYCoD #FolkTunesfromtheWomen

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Hear about the story behind Folk Tunes from the Women from @kathryntickell on @BBCInTune (44 mins in) https://t.co/ZWZQ7TYCoD #FolkTunesfromtheWomen

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In Tune - Emma Smith, Kathryn Tickell - BBC Sounds

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Sean Rafferty with Emma Smith and Kathryn Tickell.

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Women in Piping and Drumming: Equality, Inclusivity, and Diversity Research 2023

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Women in Piping and Drumming: Equality, Inclusivity, and Diversity Research 2023

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to take part in this study, you need to respond by Friday 2 June 2023.

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Women in Piping and Drumming: Equality, Inclusivity, and Diversity Research 2023 - The National Piping Centre

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Promoting the study and history of piping in Scotland.

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Charlotte Milligan Fox - Irish song collector

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Charlotte Milligan Fox - Irish song collector

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Read Clodagh Finn's article for the Irish Examiner, written for St Patrick's Day, 2023.

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It would have been quite the sight; three women travelling around Ireland with a phonograph in the early years of the 20th century, recording the folk songs played by pipers and fiddlers.

Charlotte Milligan Fox is now described as an ethnomusicologist, but in her day she was best known as a musician and founding member of the Irish Folk Song Society who did so much to collect, preserve, and publish the folk songs of Ireland.

We don't know the exact date of this stunning photograph showing her at work, notebook in hand, but we know she was recording a fiddler at Curraghmore estate in Waterford at the time.

Speaking of dates, she comes to mind ahead of St Patrick's Day because it had particular resonance in her life. It marked her birthday in Omagh in 1864, and her marriage to solicitor Charles Fox in 1892 (she wore green velvet on her wedding day).

Perhaps, most notably, March 17 was also the day this important but under-celebrated woman helped to organise the Grand Irish Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

It was a "magical evening", the posters advertising the concert in the early years of the last century tell us. In its 150-year history, the famous Royal Albert Hall has hosted everything from opera stars and suffragette rallies to the famous Proms, but on St Patrick's Day it became Irish for the evening.

Charlotte Milligan Fox played a pivotal role in maintaining the living tradition: One of the songs she collected and published in 1906 features in the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem's breakthrough 1962 live album, 'In Person at Carnegie Hall'. File picture

In 1904, for instance, Hugh O'Neill, champion Irish dancer from Limerick, performed at the famous venue with its amphitheatre design and stack balconies that sat up to 6,000 people. Some 5,000 of those places were available for a shilling, the publicity notice said.

The programmes were varied. They included not only Irish musicians, but several international names such as Australian contralto Ada Crossley.

How many of us know the name Charlotte Milligan Fox, though? She was a key figure in the Irish music revival. She was a musician, composer and performer as well as a dedicated collector of Irish music who discovered a "treasure trove" of early Irish harp music.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning in Omagh, Co Tyrone. She was the first of 11 children born to Charlotte Milligan and her husband Seaton Milligan, an antiquarian and businessman, in 1864. Her sister - and fellow music collector - Alice Milligan would go on to become a poet, playwright, and founder of the nationalist magazine .

Charlotte, however, took a different path. She showed an early gift for music and, after encouragement from the parish organist, went to study abroad. She spent two years studying at the Frankfurt Conservatoire. After that, in 1883, she spent a year at the Royal College of Music in London and then went to the Milan Conservatoire.

Charlotte Milligan Fox using the latest media technology, the phonograph, to record a fiddler at Curraghmore estate in Co Waterford in the early part of the 20th century. File picture: QUB

Her interest, however, lay in traditional Irish music. After she married, she settled in London and mixed with the likes of WB Yeats and other members of the Irish Literary Society.

In 1905, she helped found the Irish Folk Song Society and with her sisters, Alice and Edith, set off on a tour of Ireland collecting songs and tunes.

In 1906, she published arrangements for some of those tunes with words written by her sisters Alice and Edith (later Wheeler). Edith's lyrics to the song 'My Singing Bird' would later be sung by the Clancy Brothers at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1962.

Charlotte's most important act of retrieval was yet to come, however. And it happened entirely by accident, as she recounts in the preface of her book, .

She was buying a harp for the daughter of a friend at a leading London warehouse when it came into her head to ask the attendant if any old wandering harpers still came in to buy strings.

He said no, but told her of a gentleman who had bought a harp for his house because his grandfather had preserved the music of the ancient Irish harpers. Her heart skipped a beat.

When she asked, the attendant gave her the man's name and address, Louis MacRory of Battersea (no GDPR then). She wrote to Dr MacRory and was invited to visit.

"On my arrival at the doctor's house, he met me with the abrupt remark: 'Now I hope you are an Irish woman, for I think someone from Ireland should handle my grandfather's papers.'

He was delighted to hear she had come from Belfast - the family lived there at one time - as that was where Irish music collector and musician, Edward Bunting, had conducted most of his work listening to the last of the Irish minstrels in the 18th century. Charlotte later wrote:

She did not expect to find much, but grew more and more absorbed when she saw the vast numbers of musical notebooks, letters, faded documents and unpublished airs that had survived.

She pored over the material for many months and then set about putting it all down in : "The time is ripe to recall Bunting's labour and claim for him a full meed [portion] of fame," she wrote.

We might say the same of her. She not only retrieved Bunting's work but brought it to a wide audience. In 1911, she toured America giving lectures on the man himself, and his work transcribing the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792.

"I found interest in the subject keen," she wrote.

She did much to ensure it got that due attention during her own life - and afterwards, when she bequeathed the Bunting Collection to Queen's University Belfast.

Now, it's time to ensure the woman herself gets due attention as one of the leading figures of the Irish music revival. St Patrick's Day, with its focus on Irish traditions of all kinds, provides an ideal opportunity, although any attempt to remember her is likely to get crowded out in the cacophony of international celebrations.

There is another date in March when we could commemorate Charlotte Milligan Fox. She died on March 25, 1916, and is buried in Drumragh, Omagh. When that day comes around, let's pay her a long overdue tribute.

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Clodagh Finn: Musician and publisher preserved centuries of Irish traditional music

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It would have been quite the sight; three women travelling around Ireland with a phonograph in the early years of the 20th century, recording the folk songs played by pipers and fiddlers.

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Natalie Mannix's list of Trombone music by Women Composers

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Natalie Mannix's list of Trombone music by Women Composers

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A very helpful compilation!

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The Strad interviews Leah Broad about her book, Quartet

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The Strad interviews Leah Broad about her book, Quartet

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We've got Leah Broad's new book - look it up in the catalogue!

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Representation of Women Composers in the Whittaker Library

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Representation of Women Composers in the Whittaker Library

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An article by one of our librarians describing our work increasing library coverage of music by women composers and BIPOC composers:-

Karen McAulay, Representation of Women Composers in the Whittaker Library, Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice Vol.11 no.1 (2023),pp.21-26 - it's an open access journal.

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View of Representation of Women Composers in the Whittaker Library

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Return to Article Details Representation of Women Composers in the Whittaker Library

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Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers

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Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers

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Exciting new book, and now we have in the library @rcstweets https://rcs.koha-ptfs.co.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=199779

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This group's mission: Diversify the Stand is dedicated to working with diverse musical voices to create accessible educational music.

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Our Vision

We see inclusion in all aspects of the musical world. The future of music is the balance of representation - in the music we play to the careers we hold.

The future we see is a culture of musicians that program, teach, and research music because it's great music - not to just check off boxes and build on tokenism and the deep-rooted systemic racism, classism, and sexism in the music world.

Our future includes composers being programmed and included in standard repertoire for their merit as composers, not just because of a physical trait.

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We see inclusion in all aspects of the musical world. The future of music is the balance of representation - in the music we play to the careers we hold.

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Elsa Barraine - composer and French Resistance leader

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Elsa Barraine - composer and French Resistance leader

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Because women can do anything they put their minds to!

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Racism, economic stagnation, and political polarization have gripped the continent. Elections have been manipulated, false promises made, scapegoats blamed. Government-run facilities are built to punish, deter, and house specific groups of people; there is chillingly little transparency regarding what occurs within. The passivity of citizens in the face of cruelty is duly noted. There is a sense that something grave and irrevocable is about to happen.

The year is 1938, and events are escalating in Europe. The Anschluss comes in March, the Munich Agreement in September. Construction at Dachau is completed in mid-August. Kristallnacht occurs on November 9th and 10th. In the words of Hermann Göring, "The Jewish problem will reach its solution if, in anytime soon, we will be drawn into war beyond our border - then it is obvious that we will have to manage a final account with the Jews."

Elsa Barraine, a twenty-eight-year-old composer with a passion for politics, watches anxiously from France. She is devastated by what is unfolding. She is Jewish on her father's side. Her reaction to Hitler was to join the French Communist Party. She has even penned a symphonic poem protesting fascism: 1933's Pogromes. Its inspiration was a poem by Jewish poet André Spire. The first part of the poem encourages Jews to fight back against their enemies. But the second - and the only portion of the text that Barraine chooses to treat - chronicles the perspective of Jewish elders, who counsel acceptance of fate when confronted by inescapable destruction.

In 1938, as Nazism creeps closer to her doorstep and a global conflagration becomes inevitable, Elsa Barraine writes her second symphony. It is a work of majestic dread and determination, seasoned by hard jolts of violence and sarcasm. She entitles the work "Voina": the Russian word for war.

France surrenders to the Nazis in June of 1940. On 7 December 1941 Adolf Hitler issues what becomes known as the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) directive, targeting activists. That same day Heinrich Himmler issues clarifying instructions to the Gestapo:

After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender. Deportation to Germany serves this purpose.

*

Elsa Jacqueline Barraine was born 13 February 1910 in Paris. Every member of her family was uncommonly musical. Her father Mathieu was the principal cellist of the storied Orchestre de l'Opéra, and her mother Octavie gave piano lessons and sang in the chorus of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, one of the most prominent French orchestras of the era.

Her parents and her sister Agnès (fourteen years her senior) all contributed to Elsa's musical education in their own ways. Her father brought her to rehearsals and performances at the decadent Palais Garnier opera house (the setting for the 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera). Octavie taught Elsa piano, while Agnès took her to harmony classes at the Paris Conservatoire. Elsa entered the Conservatoire at the age of nine. As a result, she received very little general education as a child, an insecurity that would bother her throughout her life.

She studied alongside soon-to-be-famous French composers including Yvonne Desportes, Maurice Duruflé, Claude Arrieu, and Olivier Messiaen. Even among these stars, she was a standout. At the age of fifteen she snagged a first prize in harmony. Two years later she won first prizes in fugue and counterpoint, as well in as piano accompaniment.
Elsa Barraine with her classmates. She's at the left crossing her arms and her ankles.
Her mentor and dearest inspiration was her teacher Paul Dukas, best known today for writing the symphonic poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice. He once declared that his goal as a teacher was "to help young musicians to express themselves in accordance with their own natures. Music necessarily has to express something; it is also obliged to express somebody, namely, its composer." This philosophy of composition as self-expression was deeply appealing to Barraine, and is arguably a major reason why so many of her works contain direct responses to the world she lived in and the issues she felt strongly about.
Elsa Barraine's haunting Prelude and Fugue No. 2, dating from the late 1920s
She had done well at the Conservatoire, but the ultimate challenge for an ambitious young French composer was winning the Grand Prix de Rome, following in the footsteps of legends like Berlioz, Gounod, Debussy, and others. Competing for the Prix de Rome was a famously grueling challenge. After a preliminary round, the most promising candidates were sent to a final round which lasted for an entire month. Competitors were expected to compose a fully orchestrated thirty-minute cantata in the space of thirty days. The winner received the opportunity to study in Rome at the Villa Medici for a period of several years.

Barraine first tried for the prize in 1928. The attempt ended promisingly; she carried off the second Grand Prix with her Heracles at Delpes. She returned to compete the following year, when she wrote La vierge guerrière, a cantata based on the legend of Joan of Arc, and this won her the grand prize. Her victory had come at the age of nineteen, in a competition open to composers up to thirty years old. She was only the fourth woman to win it.

In January 1930 Barraine and her mother made their way to the Villa Medici in Rome. It was a harrowing time to visit. Mussolini's mission to remake and restore national greatness was seeping into every Italian's life. Women were encouraged to abandon their careers and have babies (the state provided incentives to marry and procreate). Divorce, abortion, and contraception were banned. Children partook in military exercises. Communist newspapers were burned in the streets. Blackshirts enforced order with violence and intimidation, targeting socialists and communists in particular. (In the early 1920s, a favorite Blackshirt pastime had been pouring castor oil down enemies' throats.) As if dealing with the culture shock of Italian fascism wasn't stressful enough, the room Barraine was given was small and dirty. Early in her stay she wrote to Dukas that it was a "rat's nest."

Disgusted by her lodgings, homesick, and no doubt unnerved by the reign of Mussolini, Barraine seized every opportunity to return to Paris. But eventually she decided to use her quasi-exile to supplement her general education. She began absorbing all she could from the art and architecture surrounding her, and she read voraciously, devouring works from Norway, Russia, China, and Japan. Dukas encouraged her to study the Bhagavad Gita; entranced, she copied it out by hand. In between visiting galleries and libraries she wrote a comic opera to satisfy the sponsors of the Prix de Rome. To her relief, Le Roi bossu forced her to return to Paris for four months of rehearsals at the Opéra-Comique, where it was produced in 1932.

After three years in fascist Italy, she wrote the six minute symphonic poem Pogromes. She also brought home scores for a piano quartet, a motet for mixed choir, and a fantasy for piano and orchestra.

Barraine began her post-Prix career by teaching privately, accompanying, and choral directing. In the 1930s she secured a position as accompanist for choirs directed by French conductor Félix Raugel. In 1935 she took a job with the Orchestre national, a new ensemble specializing in radio performance. There she became their head of singing. Later, intriguingly, she took work as a sound recordist.

When war finally broke out in 1939, Barraine and the Orchestre national fled Paris for Rennes. After Rennes was bombed, the orchestra was forced to temporarily disband. When the ensemble was resurrected in Marseille in 1941, Barraine was barred from rejoining. Her ancestry and her activism had made her an undesirable employee.

Tragically she wasn't the only one in her family to lose a job during the occupation. After a decades-long career, her 71-year-old father was pushed out of the opera orchestra. Devastated by events, he died in 1943, Nazi banners still hanging on the exterior walls of the Palais Garnier.

There was nothing left for Elsa Barraine to do but to return to Paris and try to find work as a teacher and freelance accompanist.

That and organize.

In the spring of 1941, Barraine joined forces with conductor Roger Desormiere to become a founding member of the Front National des Musiciens. Desormiere resisted the Nazis in a variety of creative ways: he programmed almost exclusively French music at his concerts; he made the first complete recording of Debussy's Pelleas et Mélisande in Paris in the spring of 1941 (a recording still revered today); he paid Milhaud's rent when Milhaud was forced to flee the country as a Jewish refugee; and he even signed his name to Jewish composers' work so they could continue writing during the occupation. (Desormiere ultimately unveiled their identities after the war.)
Desormiere's enchanting recording of Pelleas et Mélisande. Elsa Barraine was this recording's "chef de chant."
The Front National des Musiciens eventually boasted around thirty influential members, including Dutilleux, Poulenc, and Honegger. (Honegger was ultimately suspected of collaboration and shut out.) In October 1942 the Musiciens laid out five rules describing ways in which French classical musicians could employ their art to resist Nazis. In the words of this Music and the Holocaust website:

1. Musicians were to programme concerts that would help France. Many secret concerts of Jewish composers were set up, such as those for Darius Milhaud. A public concert was arranged in Paris of a composition entitled 'Mous-a-Rachac' by 'Hamid-ul-Hasarid'. The concert was a tremendous success and the Germans failed to recognise the piece as Milhaud's Scaramouche.

2. Musicians were also to show solidarity with one another, giving half their salary to the families of imprisoned comrades or Jewish musicians in hiding.

3. Demonstrations were encouraged, such as spontaneous playing of the French national anthem La Marseillaise in the presence of German soldiers.

4. Composers were called on to provide popular songs and marches for the soldiers of the Maquis Resistance groups, using lyrics from Resistance poets.

5. Musicians were banned from collaborating with Germans, either through working on Radio-Paris, becoming involved with German concerts or festivals, or writing for German newspapers.

In addition to her leadership role, Barraine wrote for the Front's secret newspaper, examining the use of classical music in Nazi propaganda and national identity. One of her articles was entitled 'German music in the service of Nazi regression'; another 'French music and the traditions of humanism.'

Unsurprisingly, Barraine's resistance put her squarely in the Nazis' crosshairs. Conflicting reports exist as to how many times she was arrested, but somehow, miraculously, she was always released. Nevertheless, by 1944 she found it necessary to go into hiding under the name Catherine Bonnard.

By war's end, a full quarter of France's Jewish population had been murdered. Even this unimaginably high proportion was one of the lowest rates of any Nazi-occupied country.

*

There is very little information available in English about Elsa Barraine's postwar career, but it seems she retained her appetite for tackling new challenges. In addition to composing and performing, she worked as an activist, journalist (in late 1944 she became a music columnist for the Communist newspaper l'Humanité), and recordist (she became the Recording Director at the Le Chant du Monde label). In 1953 she landed a position at the Paris Conservatoire. She taught analysis and sight-reading there for nearly twenty years.

Her composing continued, too, and it boasted an extraordinary breadth. She wrote dozens of works, including Suite astrologique for chamber orchestra, music for saxophone, film music, a ballet named Claudine à l'école based on a book by Colette, variations for percussion and piano, an homage to Prokofiev for orchestra, and vocal music. As late as 1967 she was synthesizing influential trends, writing Musique rituelle for organ, gongs, and xylorimba. The work featured elements of serialism and was inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

After a long and fruitful creative life, Elsa Barraine passed away in Strasbourg on 20 March 1999. Despite the historical importance of her career, the high quality of her output, and the fearlessness she displayed throughout the Nazi occupation, her work is almost never heard today.

Elsa Barraine brought her broken world into her art, and her art into her broken world. She found music to be such a potent weapon that she risked her very life to keep wielding it. To do otherwise was, for her, unimaginable.

*
As always, a huge shout-out to the patrons who make this series of articles on forgotten musical women possible! It wouldn't happen without you. If you want to support the series for as little as a dollar a month, click here. Entries come out every other Wednesday, unless I get steamrolled by a terrible cold, which is what happened this August. (Sorry about that.) Here is a list of sources: Elsa Barraine Wikipedia page Musicologie.org article on Elsa Barraine Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, 1860-1960, edited by Deborah Mawer Front National des Musiciens - Music and the Holocaust

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Elsa Barraine: Composer and French Resistance Leader

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Racism, economic stagnation, and political polarization have gripped the continent. Elections have been manipulated, false promises made, scapegoats blamed. Government-run facilities are built to punish, deter, and house specific groups of people; there is chillingly little transparency regarding what occurs within. The passivity of citizens in the face of cruelty is duly noted.

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Women who have composed for brass ensemble or band

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Women who have composed for brass ensemble or band

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Here's a very useful link that has been shared with us!

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You can search the CMC database by gender and instrument.  Good to know!

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Choose between 1 and 5 instruments. Optionally, you can also specify the quantity for each instrument.

Choose the "Exclusive Search" option to exclude results that include additional instruments.

If you select "Exclusive Search" and search for 1 Saxophone, you will get only works with exactly one Saxophone. If this option is not selected, you will get every work with at least one Saxophone.

SydneyEnterprise v4.4.0.20 - Canadian Music Centre | SydneyEnterprise (Final)

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Choose between 1 and 5 instruments. Optionally, you can also specify the quantity for each instrument. Choose the "Exclusive Search" option to exclude results that include additional instruments. If you select "Exclusive Search" and search for 1 Saxophone, you will get only works with exactly one Saxophone.

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"This database contains the profiles of composers from historically excluded groups who have consented to being represented in our [ICD] databases ..."

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ICD: CDD - Institute for Composer Diversity

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A University of Illinois Press blogpost

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Through their unique and often challenging life experiences, the women showcased in this roundup have shaped various musical genres during their time and generations to come. From performance, to music education and beyond, these women's works present philosophy and calls for cultural change that surpass the notes on the page.

Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton
By Lydia R. Hamessley

Lydia R. Hamessley's expert analysis and Dolly Parton's characteristically straightforward input inform this comprehensive look at the process, influences, and themes that have shaped the superstar's songwriting artistry. Parton's compositions like "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become American standards with an impact far beyond country music. Check out our Dolly Parton playlist featuring the songs discussed in the book on Spotify!

October 2020

"Marian Anderson's 1953 Concert Tour of Japan: A Transnational History"
By Katie A. Callam, Makiko Kimoto, Misako Ohta, and Carol J. Oja

On April 27, 1953, one year after Japan regained its sovereignty following the postwar Allied occupation, the famed African American singer Marian Anderson arrived in Tokyo for a concert tour. Exploring this moment of cultural exchange, this article contextualizes Anderson's presence as an icon of civil rights and a symbol of westernization resulting from Japan's Allied occupation.

Always The Queen: The Denise LaSalle Story
By Denise LaSalle with David Whiteis

Denise LaSalle's journey took her from rural Mississippi to an unquestioned reign as the queen of soul-blues. As honest and no-nonsense as the artist herself, Always the Queen is LaSalle's in-her-own-words story of a lifetime in music. She reinvented herself as a soul-blues artist as tastes changed and became a headliner on the revitalized southern soul circuit and at festivals nationwide and overseas. Check out a playlist of Denise LaSalle's top songs curated by David Whiteis on Spotify.

By Dottie Dodgion and Wayne Enstice

Undeterred by hardships, Dottie Dodgion defied the odds and earned a seat as a woman in the exclusive men's club of jazz. Her dues-paying path as a musician took her from early work with Charles Mingus to being hired by Benny Goodman at Basin Street East on her first day in New York. Vivid and always entertaining, The Lady Swings tells Dottie Dodgion's story with the same verve and straight-ahead honesty that powered her playing.

March 2021

"Indivisible: The Nation and Its Anthem in Black Musical Performance"
By Shana L. Redmond

Just before the 2008 Democratic National Convention, jazz artist René Marie was chosen to sing at the Denver, Colorado annual State of the City address. However, as she was singing the "Star Spangled Banner," Marie borrowed lyrics from the Negro National Anthem
"Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing." This article explores the performance's impact and its messages on race and patriotism at the dawning of a "postracial" America.

By Tammy L. Kernodle

The jazz musician-composer-arranger Mary Lou Williams spent her sixty-year career working in-and stretching beyond-a dizzying range of musical styles. Her integration of classical music into her works helped expand jazz's compositional language. Tammy L. Kernodle details Williams's life in music against the backdrop of controversies over women's place in jazz and bitter arguments over the music's evolution.

October 2020

By Rae Linda Brown and with a forward by Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr.

The Heart of a Woman offers the first-ever biography of Florence B. Price, a composer whose career spanned both the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances, and the first African American woman to gain national recognition for her works. Through interviews and a wealth of material from public and private archives, Rae Linda Brown illuminates Price's major works while exploring the considerable depth of her achievement.

By Danielle Sofer

Enraged by "bigoted puritanism," Alice Shields wrote Apocalypse, an electronic opera that sought to criticize mainstream 1990's conservatism. Sofer show how Apocalypse addresses sexual censorship through music, text, and choreography to envision a world for which sex is not stigmatized but instead exists as a productive and inseparable aspect of culture and music.

"Street Queens: New Orleans Brass Bands and the Problem of Intersectionality"
By Kyle DeCoste

The members of the all-female Original Pinettes Brass Band contest the male domination of the New Orleans brass band scene. Playing music on male-gendered instruments, they queer the normative relationship between instruments and musicians and carve out a space for female musicianship. This essay deconstructs their songs and performance decisions as agential and subjective sites of black feminist thought put into action to subvert the brass band patriarchy.

By Leta E. Miller and J. Michele Edwards

Chen Yi is the most prominent woman among the renowned group of new wave composers who came to the US from mainland China in the early 1980s. Chen is known for her creative output and a distinctive merging of Chinese and Western influences. Leta E. Miller and J. Michele Edwards highlight Chen's compositional strategies, her artistic elaborations, and the voice that links her earliest and most recent music.

December 2020

By Suzanne Robinson

As both composer and critic, Peggy Glanville-Hicks contributed to the astonishing cultural ferment of the mid-twentieth century. She forged alliances with power brokers and artists that gained her entrance to core American cultural entities such as the League of Composers, New York Herald Tribune, and the Harkness Ballet. The seventy musical works she composed ranged from celebrated operas like Nausicaa to intimate, jewel-like compositions created for friends.

by Helen Walker-Hill

Helen Walker-Hill's unique study provides a carefully researched examination of the history and scope of musical composition by eight African-American women composers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From Spirituals to Symphonies focuses on the effect of race, gender, and class, and notes the important role played by individual personalities and circumstances in shaping this under-appreciated category of American art.

Want to find more music titles? Browse our list here.

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Pioneering Women in Music - Illinois Press Blog

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Through their unique and often challenging life experiences, the women showcased in this roundup have shaped various musical genres during their time and generations to come. From performance, to music education and beyond, these women's works present philosophy and calls for cultural change that surpass the notes on the page.

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Publisher Theodore Front's website - dedicated page

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classical women composers | theodore front musical literature

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Classical Women Composers | Theodore Front Musical Literature

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Classical Women Composers | Theodore Front Musical Literature

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Florence Price - Piano quintet, in A minor

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Florence Price - Piano quintet, in A minor

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We're ordering this piece for the library. (The Classical Vocal Rep publisher is diversifying into instrumental music as well - great news!)

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quintet in a minor for strings & piano (revised 2021)

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Quintet in A Minor for Strings & Piano (Revised 2021)

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Quintet in A Minor for Strings & Piano (Revised 2021) - Composer: Florence Beatrice Price Title: Quintet in A minor for Piano and Strings Editor: Lia Jensen-Abbott Revised with note corrections by Tomoko Kashiwagi (2021) Category: Women Composers Score and Parts set: $70 Publisher: ClarNan Editions ...

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Event: Women leading EDI in Music Education (2 Dec 2022)

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Event: Women leading EDI in Music Education (2 Dec 2022)

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Event on 2 Dec, 10 am to 3 pm, via Teams. Sign up on Eventbrite.

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Brenda Rattray - (Goldsmiths University)

Brenda Rattray is an international vocal coach, educator, composer, performer, author, and mother who helps people discover their authentic voices and express their truths. Her music school, Voice Expressions, guides students in grounding and connecting with themselves and others, unlocking vocal blocks, finding their true voices, and expressing themselves in the safe space she creates, through music. She lectures at Goldsmiths University and is an external examiner for Kingston University. With her empathetic and compassionate leadership Brenda inspires future leaders, she has trained musicians from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Concert Orchestra to work in the community, and trains teachers and community musicians in a number of institutions including the Institute of Education. She also works in high security prisons, psychiatric hospitals, in rehabs with families experiencing addiction and uses music as part of a healing journey with women leaving prostitution in a bid to start a new life.

Brenda's unique skill extends beyond the classroom, where she curates conferences and runs training workshops for the charity Sound Connections, exploring leadership with equity, empathy, compassion, and kindness; as well as using the power of inclusivity, intersectional diversity, and representation to bring communities together. Working as a trainer for Women's Aid, Brenda taught a 'Keys to Freedom' course to women experiencing domestic violence; for which she achieved an Excellence in Education Award.

Her book The Joy of Singing is published by Faber Music.

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Brenda Rattray is an international vocal coach, educator, composer, performer, author, and mother who helps people discover their authentic voices and express their truths. Her music school, Voice Expressions, guides students in grounding and connecting with themselves and others, unlocking vocal blocks, finding their true voices, and expressing themselves in the safe space she creates, through music.

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Launch of the EDI Music Studies research report ‘Slow Train Coming? Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in UK Music Higher Education’.

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Launch of the EDI Music Studies research report ‘Slow Train Coming? Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in UK Music Higher Education’.

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The event is Wednesday 16th November, 6.30pm online and in person at King’s College London.

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We are delighted to announce the launch of the EDI Music Studies research report 'Slow Train Coming? Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in UK Music Higher Education'.

The launch will take place in-person at King's College London and online at 6.30pm on Wednesday 16th November. All welcome.

The report analyses Higher Education Statistics Agency data for all staff and students in music HE from 2016-20, as well as questionnaire data from representatives of 32 music departments/institutions across the UK. We also hear the voices of those affected by inequalities throughout the report.

The report will be published here on our website after the launch.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Wednesday 16th November, 6.30pm online and in person at King’s College London.

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Forgotten Voices: REDISCOVERING FEMALE COMPOSERS OF THE PAST WITH VOICES OF THE FUTURE

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Forgotten Voices: REDISCOVERING FEMALE COMPOSERS OF THE PAST WITH VOICES OF THE FUTURE

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A festival that took place in 2021. Read about the 'forgotten voices' that were rediscovered.

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We celebrated International Women's Day 2021 with an online festival showcasing some of the extraordinary music composed by women over the last 180 years. Working in association with HERA, we put together a programme of over eighty songs and arias which will be recorded by 50 students from the UK's conservatoires and young artist programmes.

​

​

Agathe Backer-Grøndhal

Amy Beach

Adolpha le Beau

Margaret Bonds

Ingleborg Bronsart von Schellendorf

Hedwige Chrétien

Rebecca Clarke

Avril Coleridge-Taylor

Maud Cuney-Hare

Eva Dell'Acqua

Pauline Duchamge

Gabrielle Ferrari

Eugenie-Emilie Juliette Folville

Chiquinha Gonzaga

Clemance de Grandval

Guy d'Hardelot (Helen Rhodes)

Augusta Holmès

​ Amy Elise Horrocks

Elaine Hugh-Jones

Betty Jackson King

Mathilde Kralik von Meyrswalden

Claire Lidell

Laura Netzel

Johanna Müller-Hermann

Marguerite Olagnier

Morfydd Owen

Poldowski (Régine Wieniawski)

Betty Roe

Charlotte Sainton-Dolby

Undine Smith Moore

Pauline Viardot

Maude Valérie White

Grace Williams

Amy Woodforde-Finden

For Love Let Wind Cry...How I Adore Thee by Undine Smith Moore appears courtesy of Round Hill Carlin

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We celebrated International Women's Day 2021 with an online festival showcasing some of the extraordinary music composed by women over the last 180 years. Working in association with HERA, we put together a programme of over eighty songs and arias which will be recorded by 50 students from the UK's conservatoires and young artist programmes.

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New book added to library stock - looks really interesting!

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Material type: Publisher: London : Subject(s): Book Bloomsbury Academic, 2022 Description: 256 pages ; 24 cm. ISBN: 9781913441340 (pbk.) :. Black people -- Social conditions -- Scotland | Black people -- Race identity -- Scotland

Summary: What does it mean to be Black in Scotland today? How are notions of nationhood, Scottishness, and Britishness implicated in this? Why is it important to archive and understand Black Scottish history? Reflecting on the past to make sense of the present, Francesca Sobande and layla-roxanne hill explore the history and contemporary lives of Black people in Scotland. Based on intergenerational interviews, survey responses, photography, and analysis of media and archived material, this book offers a unique snapshot of Black Scottish history and recent 21st century realities. Focusing on a wide range of experiences of education, work, activism, media, creativity, public life, and politics, Black Oot Here presents a vital account of Black lives in Scotland, while carefully considering the future that may lie ahead.

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Details for: Black oot here : Black lives in Scotland / › Royal Conservatoire of Scotland catalog

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Material type: Publisher: London : Subject(s): Book Bloomsbury Academic, 2022 Description: 256 pages ; 24 cm. ISBN: 9781913441340 (pbk.) :. Black people -- Social conditions -- Scotland | Black people -- Race identity -- Scotland Summary: What does it mean to be Black in Scotland today?

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We learned via Twitter that the British Music Collection is 'offering 3 x £750 grants for new sonic works by Black composers, artists and collectives, with particular focus on those who have faced socio-economic barriers.' Go for it!

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Every year we review and refresh our opportunities and this year we want to support Black creators from the African and Caribbean diaspora based in the UK. We are particularly interested in receiving proposals from those who identify as coming from low socio-economic or working-class backgrounds - who have faced additional barriers due to their socio-economic status.

Here at Sound and Music, and particularly on the British Music Collection, we feel that it's essential to capture moments in our collective history; to create a space to reflect, to celebrate individual voices, and to address the under-representation of Black composers, creators, and their works.

The opportunity:

Black Composers Open Call:  3 x £750 grants for new sonic works.

Deadline for delivery: February-March 2023

The named applicant must be based in the UK and not currently participating in a Sound and Music programme (e.g. New Voices, Composer-Curator and Adopt a Music Creator). If you have received an award from us (e.g. Francis Chagrin, Covid-19 or Seed Award) you are welcome to apply.

If you are unsure about your eligibility, you can contact Grace Bailey, Executive Administrator - grace.bailey@soundandmusic.org

The selected works will be hosted uniquely on the British Music Collection website and will be shared widely via Sound and Music's social channels and newsletters.

The brief for this project is intentionally open and isn't tied to any specific themes, as we want to support Black composers and creators to make the works they feel need to be heard. However, we are keen to support those who identify as coming from low socio-economic or working-class backgrounds and to address the structural barriers still faced in the new music sector. Applicants will be able to self-define and will not be asked to provide any evidence of their status.

Works do not need to address class directly to be considered, but we are keen to understand how widespread socioeconomic and geographic variances in provision and opportunities affect approaches to creating new music and sound-this could be captured within the works or via additional context i.e. a blog.

Works can be created either alone (solo) or with collaborators of your choice (this could be another composer, musician, visual artist, filmmaker, animator or writer etc. For the fee, we are looking for 1 to 5-minute creative, sonic responses. You're welcome to produce a piece of work longer than this, but Sound and Music is keen to ensure everyone is paid fairly and properly for their time and output.

Previous projects have covered themes such as 'Identity and the anxiety of influence', notions of 'identity and aesthetic' and issues surrounding the breadth of new music produced by Black composers across the UK.

How to apply:
Deadline for proposals:  Thursday 24th November 2022
In your proposal, you will be asked to provide:

Your basic contact information (Name, email, phone number)

250 words or a 2-minute video about your idea for this work

250 words or a 2-minute video about your experience of creating new works

You will also be asked to complete Sound and Music's Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form (anonymous)

Please note that video applications do not need to be you talking to a camera. Please apply in whatever way best suits your needs.
If you have any access needs or access related costs with regards to applying for this opportunity, please contact: If you have a question, you can contact: Grace Bailey, Executive Administrator - grace.bailey@soundandmusic.org

A panel of Sound and Music staff plus one external panellist will select the successful applicants.

We will aim to get back to all applicants week commencing 12th December 2022

We are committed to equality, inclusivity and diversity across all our programmes. We actively encourage applicants who are D/deaf; disabled; LGBTQI+; working class;  who have experienced racism; and applicants who feel they have had less access to opportunity, or who have experienced barriers or discrimination, due to a protected or other characteristic.

You can find out more about our commitment to creating open and inclusive opportunities by reading our Fair Access Principles.

If you have any questions or would like this document in another format, please contact Grace Bailey, Executive Administrator - grace.bailey@soundandmusic.org

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Every year we review and refresh our opportunities and this year we want to support Black creators from the African and Caribbean diaspora based in the UK. We are particularly interested in receiving proposals from those who identify as coming from low socio-economic or working-class backgrounds - who have faced additional barriers due to their socio-economic status.

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Nate Holder gives an Exchange Talk at RCS, 31 October 2022

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Nate Holder gives an Exchange Talk at RCS, 31 October 2022

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All the information you need is in this blogpot on Whittaker Live!

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Now we just need to source some music for the library!

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Purbayan is considered as one of the finest Sitar players in Indian Classical music and has attained a very special place for himself among the musicians and music lovers around the world. Purbayan belongs to the famous Senia Maihar Gharana, the school established by musical genius Baba Allauddin Khan, the guru of such stars as Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (He also studied with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan) on the sarod and sitar players Pandit Ravi Shankar and Pandit Nikhil Banerjee.

Purbayan is a multifaceted musician. Along with his concerts of North Indian raga music, he also performs with musicians from the South Indian raga tradition and participates in various fusion projects with jazz (His music has been appreciated by jazz greats, such as Chick Corea, Bella Fleck, and Pat Metheney). and world musicians all over the globe. Purbayan is also astounding vocalist and has lent his soulful voice to many mellifluous compositions.

Purbayan has designed the DWO, which is a Doppelganger of the Indian Sitar. Purbayan's DWO celebrates the oneness of two. It creates sound where the acoustic and the digital, where the ancient and the modern, where the ethnic and the urban, where the esoteric and the virtuosic, all complement each other and become one.

His soulful and dexterous performances have evoked praise and admiration in various music festivals in India and abroad.

Awards and accolades came his way early in life. Purbayan was a recipient of the President of India Award for being the Best Instrumentalist of the country at the age of 15. He has also received the prestigious Aditya Vikram Birla Award for excellence and contributions to the field. He has been awarded the highest artist-grade by the All India Radio.

Purbayan has performed in esteemed venues in his international career spanning 26 years. Some of which are:

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Sydney Opera House

Ted Baxter Hall, Capetown

Konzerthaus, Berlin

Esplanade Theatres, Singapore

Adelaide Festival Centre

Theatre de la Ville, Paris

Salle Gaveau, Paris

Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels

Purbayan has performed in many prestigious music festivals.

Bath International Music Festival, UK

Brighton Festival, UK

WOMAD, UK

International Music Symposium, Germany

Millennium Festival WDR Koln, Germany

The Port Fairy Folk Festival,

The North Sea Jazz Festival, Cape

World Music Festival,

Alchemy Festival, UK

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Purbayan is considered as one of the finest Sitar players in Indian Classical music and has attained a very special place for himself among the musicians and music lovers around the world.

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Crossing bar lines : the politics and practices of black musical space / James Gordon Williams; foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley (new book in the Whittaker Library)

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Crossing bar lines : the politics and practices of black musical space / James Gordon Williams; foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley (new book in the Whittaker Library)

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New in stock - it'll be on the shelves almost immediately!

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Details for: Crossing bar lines : the politics and practices of black musical space / › Royal Conservatoire of Scotland catalog

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Williams reframes the nature and purpose of jazz improvisation to illuminate the cultural work being done by five creative musicians between 2005 and 2019. The political thought of five African American improvisers-trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Ambrose Akinmusire, drummers Billy Higgins and Terri Lyne Carrington, and pianist Andrew Hill - is documented through insightful, multilayered case studies that make explicit how these musicians articulate their positionality in broader society.

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Keep an eye on this network!

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Welcome to the home of the Women in Global Music Network.

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Follow this exciting network, or maybe bookmark their website for future reference

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Tweets by WIGMNetwork

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Guitar Music by Women Composers (Annette Kruisbrink on YouTube)

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Guitar Music by Women Composers (Annette Kruisbrink on YouTube)

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We have Kruisbrink's guitar anthology here in the library. Now here's a YouTube video about women guitar composers!

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Documentary: 'Women Composers for the Guitar' by Annette Kruisbrink

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RCS subscribes to Drama Online. Here is an exciting message from the providers:-
'On Drama Online this term (Autumn 2022), our new featured content explores the contribution made by women in the field of Shakespeare studies, as actors, directors and critics. Written by Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Theatre at The Shakespeare Institute, the new essay and free-to-view book and play content engages with various collections across Drama Online to highlight some of the important works around Shakespeare in our library that have been written by, for and about women.

The free-to-view play and book content allows you to:

·       Read the chapter 'Performing Death and Desire in Othello' from Performing Shakespeare's Women, which explores the challenges faced by female actors performing Shakespeare today

·       Explore the introduction to Shakespeare and Feminist Theory, which examines Shakespeare’s plays in the context of a range of feminist criticism, focussing on both male and female characters

·       Delve in to the chapter 'Female Prosperos and What They Tell Us' from Women Making Shakespeare, which celebrates the contribution made by women in their engagement with Shakespeare, as critics, editors, theatre managers, authors, actors, directors, and more

Examine Act One from three different versions of the Arden Shakespeare Third Series edition of Hamlet, edited by Professor Ann Thompson, who was not only the first woman to edit Hamlet, but the first editor to create a modernised, critical edition of the text

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by Toby Zinman
Professor Emerita, University of the Arts

American political drama is as diverse as America itself, and the issues that are crucial offstage also appear onstage. Plays tackle a wide range of overtly political and governmental topics including 'American exceptionalism', the global power the country wields and the Constitution. American political drama also confronts many socio-economic issues, from housing and health care crises, to racism, sexism and disability, as well as issues connected with language and identity.

Below we delve into just a few of the plays on Drama Online that engage with American political and socio-economic matters.

What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck and The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The 2022-2023 season's most-produced play according to American Theater magazine, What the Constitution Means to Me, has won admiration from critics and audiences alike. The play is a long monologue in which Schreck speaks in her own voice about the Constitution of the United States: its amendments, its flaws, and its failures.

The Heidi Schreck we first meet tells us that she paid her college tuition thirty years before with prize money from a program sponsored by the American Legion in which young debaters argued for or against the Constitution. She explains that she based her debate position on the experience of her fore-mothers and that the Constitution did not protect them. This feminist argument has, dramatically, the advantages of both the interest of fact and the emotion of story. History, as she points out, is not even-handed. Her teenage zealotry segues into adult outrage as she asks us whether the Constitution should endure.

To explain the Constitution she refers to it as a "crucible", a "pot in which you put many different ingredients and boil them together until they transform into something else. Something that is sometimes magic. So you see, our Constitution is like a witch's cauldron."

The Crucible, National Theatre, 2022

There is no mistaking Arthur Miller's presence here; his play, The Crucible is a foundational work of American theater, challenging the same hallowed ideas as What the Constitution Means to Me. Just as Schreck addresses the cigar-smoking white men in the Legionnaires Hall, so Miller in his preface writes about the Puritans, "They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us." Miller and Schreck leap across time, from 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts during the witch trials, to 1953 when Miller's play opened in New York, to 1989 when Schreck's "fifteen year old self" presented her bold argument in the debate to win her prize money, to 2022 when the National Theatre's spectacular production of The Crucible premiered in London, and finally to whenever it is that you are reading this. The two plays both highlight that the Constitution's protections were not, and still are not, equitable.

Back of the Throat by Yussef El Guindi

El Guindi's plays offer a wide tonal range; Back of the Throat is a study in ambiguity and disturbing tension-for the characters and the audience- while his later drama, Language Rooms, is even more emotionally distressing. Working from a privileged childhood and an international education, El Guindi seems to side with everyone and no one, which is exactly the point: ambiguity is the name of his dramatic game. His topic in Back of the Throat is racial profiling, which translates as typecasting, in his darkly hilarious show-business satire, Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes.

Back of the Throat begins sometime shortly after 9/11, when two men who are presumably CIA agents suspect Khaled of a connection to the 9/11 terrorists. Their intimidation and violation of his privacy and civil rights (another nod to the Constitution) grows more and more complicated: who is the bad guy here? Another suspect-a dead one-startlingly appears in Khaled's closet as does his ex-girlfriend who offers damning testimony. And testimony it is, since the play forces us to act as judge and jury, constantly shifting our assessment. Each character is angry, but for different reasons and in different ways, and we, too, alternate between outrage and fear.

The title refers to how to pronounce Khaled's name; that the two American agents cannot quite manage it becomes a metaphor for the dangers of miscommunication. It's the Tower of Babel all over again.

Oslo by J.T. Rogers.

The Oslo Accords were a set of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that established a peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The famous 1993 photograph shows Bill Clinton, standing, arms wide to include Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin as they sign the historic document.

Oslo is full of funny one-liners and a great deal of shouting; it follows the unlikely series of events of backchannel negotiations that began in Oslo, Norway, accomplishing in four months what had not happened in forty years of Israeli/Palestinian enmity. Norway has "what the U.S. can never have: the appearance of neutrality". Mona, "the jewel of the Norwegian foreign service" and the wife of the hapless Prime Minister, is the courageous, unrecognized genius of secret diplomacy, knowing that some things, like the future of Jerusalem, have to be left to "constructive ambiguity". That the accords soon collapsed into violence and revenge is the play's dire conclusion, and a desperate hope for the future is all that can be extracted from Oslo 's finale. Current headlines as war begins again make this play's power all the more shockingly grim.

Oslo swept the 2017 Tony Awards and won many other prizes; this audio production has a very starry British cast.

Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage

Lynn Nottage was the most-produced playwright in the 2022-23 season according to American Theater magazine. Her plays are rich and varied, from the searing Ruined about warlords in Congo to the grim factory drama of Sweat, to the charm of Clyde 's with its ex-convicts who create extravagant sandwiches.

Set in New York City, Fabulation follows Black publicist Undine, who experiences life at both the top and bottom of American society. A rollicking satire with a serious agenda, a meditation on identity and family and the reinvention of self; this theme is theatricalized by having the small ensemble of actors double and triple themselves creating a large cast of characters.

Undine is a fabulation with a name and personality borrowed from Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country. After she graduates from Dartmouth, she fictitiously kills off her family, escapes the public housing where she grew up and becomes rich and ruthless. Her company is a "boutique PR firm catering to the vanity and confusion of the African American nouveau riche." Her husband is a sexy creep who steals all her money and vanishes, leaving her pregnant and broke. With nowhere else to go, she returns to her roots in the Brooklyn projects, exploring the "full range of rage" as she discovers the real world of poverty, drug dealers and exasperating social services; but she also discovers authenticity and unexpected kindness.

Cost of Living by Martyna Majok

The title of this play refers to the literal economic cost of living as well as the emotional cost of just surviving as a decent human being. As one character tells us, "The shit that happens is not to be understood." In Cost of Living, Majok explores the way poverty and class separate people, despite their yearning for connection.

This quiet, heart-wrenching play is about four lonely, desperate people and the "shit" that has happened and is happening to them. Eddie is an unemployed truck driver trying his best to care for Ani, his tough-talking estranged wife now a quadriplegic after a car crash; Jess is an exhausted barista who sleeps in her car and works as a caregiver for John, an entitled, rich graduate student at Princeton who has cerebral palsy. Scenes alternate between the pairs: Jess bathing John, Eddie bathing Ani, with every awkward moment presented and many brave attempts at compassion rebuffed.

The dialogue provides four studies in the varieties of response to misfortune, and four very distinct voices; there is nothing sentimental here, no ennobling talk show talk about rising above adversity. Performed on Broadway with two disabled actors in the cast, the play becomes a profound revelation of the courage of ordinary people and the cost of just staying alive.

Visit our Previously Featured Content page to view other topics including Interpreting Shakespeare: Discover the First Folio, The Plays of Caryl Churchill, Women in Shakespeare, Drama without Borders: Stories of migrants and refugees, The Climate Crisis in Theatre, Black British Playwrights, and LGBTQ+ Playwrights.

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Needless to say, the Whittaker Library is pre-ordering this tempting title!

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Glasgow Women's Library Autumn 2022 Programme

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Glasgow Women's Library Autumn 2022 Programme

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Spread your wings, visit another library, see what else is going on around Glasgow - at the famed Glasgow Women's Library

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Our Autumn 2022 Programme is now available and you can pick up your copy of the beautiful printed brochure at GWL, take a look on our website, or download a pdf programme to find out all about events and projects happening this season.

This season at Glasgow Women's Library sees the Three Decades of Changing Minds project take its next steps in exploring the GWL origin story and you're invited! We will be delving further into the archive and sharing the institutional knowledge we've captured over the last four months, using our archive as a tool for inciting memories and a framework for looking at the present and future; looking back to move forward.

Action from our archive will be accompanied by our usual packed programme of workshops, exhibitions, reading and writing events. A lot of our events are taking place in person again but we are still running some online.

This programme takes us right up to the end of the year and includes our seasonal closure. We'll be closed for the holidays from Wednesday 21st December to Wednesday 4th January.

We're trying to make our programme as accessible as possible and with this in mind we're delighted to present our programme in audio format. If you have any thoughts or suggestions on these formats, or on accessibility in general, please do let us know.

A Warm Welcome

Women Make History

Women's Words

30th Anniversary Events

Artists and Exhibitions

Get More Involved

Joining and Booking, Accessibility and Green Ways to Get To Bridgeton

This entry was posted in News.

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Autumn 2022 Programme Out Now | Glasgow Women's Library

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Our Autumn 2022 Programme is now available and you can pick up your copy of the beautiful printed brochure at GWL, take a look on our website, or download a pdf programme to find out all about events and projects happening this season.

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'Championing change and celebrating diversity in classical music'

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Chineke! Orchestra | Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify | Linktree

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View Chineke_Orchestra's Linktree. Listen to their music on YouTube, Apple Music here.

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EFDSS shares Black History Month resource

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EFDSS shares Black History Month resource

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Especially useful to our music teachers!

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For #BlackHistoryMonth2022, our FREE Black Singers and Folk Ballads resource by @CohenKilcoyne reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies. For educators in Music, English, Drama, History etc at KS3+ https://t.co/SynFN9Pa7z

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This new Black History resource written by musician and singer Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies in the Southern United States and the Caribbean. It explores how songs h

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For #BlackHistoryMonth2022, our FREE Black Singers and Folk Ballads resource by @CohenKilcoyne reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies. For educators in Music, English, Drama, History etc at KS3+ https://t.co/SynFN9Pa7z https://t.co/Os3lDRiOxU

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For #BlackHistoryMonth2022, our FREE Black Singers and Folk Ballads resource by @CohenKilcoyne reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies. For educators in Music, English, Drama, History etc at KS3+ https://t.co/SynFN9Pa7z pic.twitter.com/Os3lDRiOxU
— EFDSS (@TheEFDSS) September 30, 2022

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This new Black History resource written by musician and singer Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies in the Southern United States and the Caribbean. It explores how songs h

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
For #BlackHistoryMonth2022, our FREE Black Singers and Folk Ballads resource by @CohenKilcoyne reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies. For educators in Music, English, Drama, History etc at KS3+ https://t.co/SynFN9Pa7z https://t.co/Os3lDRiOxU

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
For #BlackHistoryMonth2022, our FREE Black Singers and Folk Ballads resource by @CohenKilcoyne reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies. For educators in Music, English, Drama, History etc at KS3+ https://t.co/SynFN9Pa7z https://t.co/Os3lDRiOxU

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
For #BlackHistoryMonth2022, our FREE Black Singers and Folk Ballads resource by @CohenKilcoyne reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies. For educators in Music, English, Drama, History etc at KS3+ https://t.co/SynFN9Pa7z

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].description
This new Black History resource written by musician and singer Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, reflects thoughtfully on music-making among enslaved people in former British colonies in the Southern United States and the Caribbean. It explores how songs h

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Operabase writes about Harry T. Burleigh

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Operabase writes about Harry T. Burleigh

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Check the RCS catalogue for some of Burleigh's arrangements. His own prefaces plead for respectful interpretation by performers.

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"Burleigh's compositions and arrangements of African-American spirituals transported a musical tradition that was born out of the plight of enslaved people,onto the concert stage, where they are revered as masterful examples of uniquely American music." 
https://t.co/fRRe5uMeyB

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Operabase - Find Best Opera Singers, Artists | Opera Companies | New & Rare Opera Performance

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Operabase is the largest database of opera houses, artists, performances and agents in the world. Listings of over 1500 opera houses, 97,000 artists and 500 festivals.

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"Burleigh's compositions and arrangements of African-American spirituals transported a musical tradition that was born out of the plight of enslaved people,onto the concert stage, where they are revered as masterful examples of uniquely American music." 
https://t.co/fRRe5uMeyB https://t.co/iBAGZxOaQw

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"Burleigh's compositions and arrangements of African-American spirituals transported a musical tradition that was born out of the plight of enslaved people,onto the concert stage, where they are revered as masterful examples of uniquely American music." https://t.co/fRRe5uMeyB pic.twitter.com/iBAGZxOaQw
— Operabase (@Operabase_) September 12, 2022

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Operabase - Find Best Opera Singers, Artists | Opera Companies | New & Rare Opera Performance

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Operabase is the largest database of opera houses, artists, performances and agents in the world. Listings of over 1500 opera houses, 97,000 artists and 500 festivals.

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"Burleigh's compositions and arrangements of African-American spirituals transported a musical tradition that was born out of the plight of enslaved people,onto the concert stage, where they are revered as masterful examples of uniquely American music." 
https://t.co/fRRe5uMeyB https://t.co/iBAGZxOaQw

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
"Burleigh's compositions and arrangements of African-American spirituals transported a musical tradition that was born out of the plight of enslaved people,onto the concert stage, where they are revered as masterful examples of uniquely American music." 
https://t.co/fRRe5uMeyB https://t.co/iBAGZxOaQw

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
"Burleigh's compositions and arrangements of African-American spirituals transported a musical tradition that was born out of the plight of enslaved people,onto the concert stage, where they are revered as masterful examples of uniquely American music." 
https://t.co/fRRe5uMeyB

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Operabase - Find Best Opera Singers, Artists | Opera Companies | New & Rare Opera Performance

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Operabase is the largest database of opera houses, artists, performances and agents in the world. Listings of over 1500 opera houses, 97,000 artists and 500 festivals.

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Donne Report - Equality and Diversity in Concert Halls

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Donne Report - Equality and Diversity in Concert Halls

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Read the latest research on an important issue!

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RESEARCH

Equality & Diversity in Concert Halls | 2020-2021
100 orchestras worldwide

This latest research by Donne - Women in Music has been prepared to get a better understanding of how classical music is responding to the current and very important issue of equality and diversity in concert's repertoire worldwide. It builds on previous research carried out in and The new results presented here were determined by in-depth analysis of composers' works scheduled for the 2020-2021 season in 100 orchestras from 27 countries.

The results show that only 11.45% of the scheduled concerts worldwide included compositions by women. 88.55% included solely compositions written by men.
There has been a small improvement on the overall inclusion of works by women in concerts compared with previous years. But, when we look closely at the numbers, it is a different matter.

Only 747 out of the 14,747 compositions scheduled by the 100 orchestras throughout the 2020-2021 season, were composed by women - a total of 5%.

One alarming fact is that only 1.11% of pieces were composed by Black & Asian women and only 2.43% by Black & Asian men.

Whilst the improvement on previous years are welcome, the rate of change is slow.

FURTHER ANALYSIS DONE BY ORGANISATIONS WORLDWIDE

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Equality & Diversity in Concert Halls | 2020-2021 100 orchestras worldwide This latest research by Donne - Women in Music has been prepared to get a better understanding of how classical music is responding to the current and very important issue of equality and diversity in concert's repertoire worldwide.

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We Mark Your Memory: writings from the descendents of indenture

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We Mark Your Memory: writings from the descendents of indenture

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New book in our library! There's a lot to absorb and think about here.

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Details for: We mark your memory : writing from the descendants of indenture / › Royal Conservatoire of Scotland catalog

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BEd Elective (ii) : Additional Support for Learning

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Songs by Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn

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Welcome to the Hensel Songs Online. Simply scroll through the page (ordered by catalogue number) to explore. You can search by name, poet, H-U# or keywords (CTRL+F - PC /CMND+F - Mac).

If you spot any errors, have difficulty reading any of the scores or would like to request songs in different keys, please fill in this form.

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Welcome to the Hensel Songs Online. Simply scroll through the page (ordered by catalogue number) to explore. You can search by name, poet, H-U# or keywords (CTRL+F - PC /CMND+F - Mac ). If you spot any errors, have difficulty reading any of the scores or would like to request songs in different keys, please fill in this form .

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'AFRICLASSICAL - A COMPANION TO AFRICLASSICAL.COM, A WEBSITE ON AFRICAN HERITAGE IN CLASSICAL MUSIC'

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An Album that Celebrates Haiti's Rich Art Music
Traditions Through Cello and Piano Works by Iconic
20th and 21st Century Haitian Composers

[Julio Racine (b. 1945) and Justin Elie (1883-1931) are profiled at AfriClassical.com]

Out October 23, 2020 on New Focus Recordings

New York, NY (August 27, 2020) - On Friday, October 23, 2020, cellist Diana Golden releasesan album that celebrates Haiti's rich and fascinating art music traditions, on New Focus Recordings. Tanbou Kache (Hidden Drum) outlines the stylistic and chronological trajectory of key composers within this tradition from the 20th century to the present, painting an ever-changing, historical picture of the leading composers of the Haitian national school of classical composition. Recorded with pianistShawn Chang, the album highlights Haitian cello and piano music by Jean "Rudy" Perrault, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Julio Racine, Carmen Brouard, Frantz Casséus, Werner Jaegerhuber, and Justin Élie. The album cover artwork was painted by Haitian-American artist Gina Samson and the liner notes were written by Dr. Claude Dauphin, a leading scholar of Haitian music.

In 2011, Golden began working for Open Access to Music Education for Children, a music center for Boston's Haitian community run by Youth and Family Enrichment Services. While working with cello students who had left Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Golden found that learning music, including traditional Haitian folk songs, helped them adjust to their life changes and deal with trauma they had experienced. This experience inspired her nearly decade-long interest in Haitian art music. She taught at the École de Musique Dessaix-Baptiste in Jacmel, Haiti during the summer of 2012, and devoted her doctoral research at Rutgers University to the history of Haitian art music.

Golden says, "Haiti has had a rich and fascinating tradition of art music creation for hundreds of years. Due to issues of preservation, publishing, and other factors, many works by Haitian composers are difficult to access and have not yet been performed or recorded. Shawn Chang and I created this album of Haitian music because we believe these compositional gems are worth hearing, these composers merit recognition, and because we hope that this album will further accessibility to this unique and fascinating repertoire, enabling exploration and enjoyment of it by scholars, performers, and listeners alike. The album's title references the Vodou drum part accompanying traditional folk songs transcribed by composer and ethnographer Werner Jaegerhuber. Because Jaegerhuber inspired generations of Haitian composers, I was inspired to choose Tanbou Kache as the title for our album."

Through his work with publisher Carl Fischer in the United States, and his concert tours of Haiti and the Caribbean, pianist and composer Justin Élie (1883 - 1931) became one of the most renowned Haitian musicians of his time. His use of indigenous Arawak themes and his interest in Haitian folk music showed his embrace of non-European musical aesthetics in crafting an authentic Haitian compositional voice. Élie's compositions often evoked impressions of Haitian landscapes. When Élie moved to New York City in 1922, he tapped into American audiences' interest in the exotic with works such as Danse Tropicale and Légende créole, the latter of which was originally composed for violin and piano and is based on the Haitian children's song "Zonbi bann mannan."

Composer Werner Jaegerhuber (1900 - 1953) left Haiti for a musical education and work opportunities in Germany as the U.S. occupation of Haiti began in 1915, but then returned to Haiti in 1937 to avoid persecution in Germany. His vast legacy includes inspiring ethnographers and ethnomusicologists by his transcriptions of Haitian folk melodies, becoming the first to study the musical structure and lyrics of Vodou songs, and destigmatizing traditional Vodou songs by incorporating them into instrumental art music. His establishment of the Pro Arte Society spurred a wave of Haitian chamber music compositions in the 1950s and provided performance opportunities for musicians, including European refugees to Haiti after World War II, such Albert Einstein's cousin Richard Einstein. Jaegerhuber was also a dedicated educator, encouraging the next generation of composers to research and use folkloric melodies and rhythms in creating a Haitian national voice. His work with folkloric dance troupes and tourist shows promoted Haitian classical music's international standing. Though many of his other compositions are folkloric or Neoclassical in style, Jaegerhuber's Petite Suite in C minor is among his baroque-influenced compositions and was likely inspired by J.S. Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites. The Petite Suite was written for Robert Durand, a cellist from Les Cayes who became a pioneer of Haitian chamber music.

A renowned classical guitarist in the last third of the 20th century and a student of Jaegerhuber, Frantz Casséus (1915 - 1993) composed especially for the guitar. While he sought to show Haitian musical style through his compositions and performances, he was also interested in incorporating Caribbean, jazz, and European classical music into his works. As Casséus moved to New York City in 1946, he sought to capture the tastes of an international market. Casséus had a rare ease at inventing his own folklore thanks to his assimilation of Haiti's folkloric musical language. In Suite haïtienne, Casséus' invented melodies include "Fi nan bwa," taken from his Haïtiennesques, and "Mèsi bon Dye," which became a hit through its interpretation by Harry Belafonte accompanied by Casséus himself. Suite haïtienne, originally composed for solo guitar and arranged for cello and piano by Julio Racine, contains some of these invented folk tunes while bringing together a large number of pre-existing Haitian traditional motifs. The piece uses the cinquillo rhythm (or five syncopated beats in a duple meter) emblematic of the Haitian méringue.

A pianist, pedagogue, and leading composer within the Haitian diaspora, Carmen Brouard (1909 - 2005) was born in Port-au-Prince but relocated to Montreal in 1977. Brouard studied with Justin Élie as well as training in Paris, and was among the first generation of Haitian nationalist composers. She helped found the Société de recherche et de diffusion de la musique haïtienne, an archive in Montreal for the promotion and study of Haitian music. Brouard's music is Romantic, folkloric, and rhythmic. The composer was inspired to portray impressions of Vodou rhythms by her memories of hearing drumming from Vodou ceremonies in the distance. In Duo Sentimental, clashing episodic sections portray the composer's various cultural influences, from quintessentially Haitian pentatonic scales to the opening theme's twelve-tone row hidden by tonal harmonizations. But by the end of the piece, the pentatonicism and twelve-tone rows are combined harmoniously at an "Amoroso" section, showing Brouard's embrace of her own divergent cultural traditions.

Julio Racine (b. 1945) began his studies at the Conservatoire national de musique d'Haïti before furthering his education as a flutist and composer at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Upon returning to Haiti, he conducted the Orchestre philharmonique de Sainte Trinité for nearly 30 years. In 2013, Racine and co-author Karine Margron published their arrangements of Haitian folk songs for children, to document and share the heritage of Haitian music with future generations. Racine's music is characterized by the development of Vodou rhythms, modal scales, and syncopated, jazzy harmonies and dissonances. These methods create an eclectic, modernist style in Racine's works. This prolific composer is represented twice on this album: first, with Casséus' Suite haïtienne which Racine arranged for cello and piano, and secondly, with his Sonate à Cynthia pour violoncelle et piano, a work dedicated to his daughter and inspired by imagining the choreography of local folk dancers.

In contrast to the other composers presented on Tanbou Kache, violinist, educator, and social activist Daniel Bernard Roumain (b. 1970) is the first composer from the national school of Haitian composition to be born in the United States. Roumain earned his doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Michigan. Besides serving as an Institute Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, he is a music industry leader through his work for the League of American Orchestras, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the Sphinx Organization. Roumain's spoken word, chamber, orchestral, choir, film, and opera compositions draw inspiration from civil rights themes and musical influences of hip hop, jazz, folk, Caribbean, and electronic music. He is also known for his large-scale music events in public spaces, including One Loss Plus, a multimedia work for violin, piano, electronics, and video from which Femiel derives. This 80-minute, meditative work explores loss.

Jean "Rudy" Perrault (b. 1961) is a Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth where he teaches violin, coaches chamber music, and conducts the orchestra. A composer within the Haitian tradition, Perrault also finds his inspiration in contemporary humanist movements. His piece Caged for flute and bass is dedicated to victims of dehumanization, and references George Floyd in its twelve-tone ordered spelling of pitches to include "GeorgEFloyD" and "CAGEFloyD." His Brother Malcolm... for cello and piano paraphrases an imaginary conversation between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on Barack Obama's inauguration to the presidency. Still Around for solo cello is dedicated to cellist and composer Aleksander Tengesdal. The piece paraphrases Ruth Schmidt-Bauemler's poem by the same name, as the order of pitches in the theme corresponds to their names-the French "Ré," the Latin "Ut," the German "H," etc., forming a cryptogram spelling of the poet's name: R-Ut-H, S-C-H, etc. The cryptogram is a nod to the spirit of the works on this CD, which all incorporate a subtly hidden Haitian dimension.

New York City-based cellist Diana Golden is a multidimensional artist who performs with chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras, and musical theater and opera companies. Her expertise ranges from traditional to newly composed repertoire with a special focus on performing and writing about Haitian art music.

Highlights of recent performances include concerts with The Irish Tenors and Michael Bolton as well as regular engagements with New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, Distinguished Concerts International New York, the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and as principal cellist with the Parlando ensemble. Golden has performed in prestigious venues throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, such as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn's National Sawdust, the Colburn School of Music, Symphony Space's Bar Thalia, Spectrum NYC, San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall, the United Nations, Montreal's Conservatoire de musique et d'art dramatique du Québec, and St. David's Hall in Cardiff, UK. She is featured on concept albums for the musicals Song of Solomon and Platinum Girls by Andrew Beall, recorded on Broadway Records, and the YMCA commercial "The Y: One Number Different."

An active chamber musician, Golden is a member of the Golden Williams Duo with violist Gregory Williams, which focuses on collaborations with living composers and has premiered works such as David Wolfson's Mood Swings, Clarissa Baquiran's ŜĮŃGKÏŁ, Leonor Falcon's No. 1 and No. 2, and Michael Kosch's Sassetta. Since its inception in 2016, Golden has been a member of the Red Door Chamber Players, a nine-member ensemble based on Long Island. She founded the Boston-based Firebrand Concert Series and performed and served as Artistic Director for three seasons.

As an educator, Golden has coached chamber music and taught private lessons for cellists of all levels and ages. She is the Founder and Director of the Red Door Chamber Partners Educational Program and a member of the cello faculty for Mountain Springs Music Festival in northern Utah. In 2011, Golden began working for Open Access to Music Education for Children, a music center for Boston's Haitian community run by Youth and Family Enrichment Services. While working with cello students who had left Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Golden found that learning music, including traditional Haitian folk songs, helped them adjust to their life changes and deal with trauma they had experienced. This experience inspired her nearly decade-long interest in Haitian art music.

Her article "Staging the Nation Through Mizik Savant: Art Music of the Haitian Diaspora" was published in the Fall 2018 issue of The Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2. Along with Shawn Chang, she presented lecture recitals on Haitian music for cello and piano at the 5th Symposium of Caribbean Art Music held at the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico and at Montreal's Conservatoire de musique et d'art dramatique du Québec, hosted by the Société de recherche et de diffusion de la musique haïtienne. In 2012, Golden served as a Guest Teaching Artist for the summer program at the École de Musique Dessaix-Baptiste in Jacmel, Haiti.

Golden's new album Tanbou Kache (Hidden Drum), out October 2020 on New Focus Recordings, highlights Haitian cello and piano music by Justin Élie, Werner Jaegerhuber, Frantz Casséus, Carmen Brouard, Julio Racine, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and Jean "Rudy" Perrault. Recorded with pianist Shawn Chang, the album celebrates Haiti's rich and fascinating tradition of art music and outlines the stylistic and chronological trajectory of key composers within this tradition from the 20th century to the present.

Golden holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Cello Performance from Rutgers University, where she completed her doctoral research on Haitian art music. She also holds a Master of Arts in Cello Performance with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Cello Performance from San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Golden's primary teachers were Jean Michel Fonteneau, Mark Kosower, Felix Schmidt, and Jonathan Spitz. Golden has also received instruction from renowned artists including Bernard Greenhouse, Colin Carr, Fred Sherry, Steven Doane, Alan Harris, Matt Haimovitz, Philip Mueller, and Sadao Harada. She was awarded a Hill and Hollow Artist Residency in 2013, John Baker Career Development Award, Sir Stapley Educational Trust Award, and a Bursary Award from the Royal Academy of Music. Learn more at www.goldencello.com.

Lauded for his recent performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 that "emphasized the melodic, lyrical aspect of the work... It was a beautiful performance" ( The Riverdale Press), Taiwanese-Canadian pianist and composer Shawn Chang has created an international career of distinction.

As a solo pianist, Chang has given recitals in high profile venues throughout the US, Canada, and his birthplace of Taipei, Taiwan, including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the United Palace Theatre, Aspen's Benedict Music Tent, the Nicholas Roerich Museum, Bohemian National Hall, June Havoc Theatre, and the Taipei National Music Hall. He is one of the 2020 Schwab Rising Stars of the Caramoor Music Festival in Katonah, New York. Chang recently appeared with pianist Steve Blier in a concert of Cuban music presented by the New York Festival of Song at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Lincoln Center. In October 2019, he appeared as a soloist with The Orchestra of The Bronx in a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" and in 2018 was featured with the orchestra as soloist performing J.S. Bach's keyboard concertos. Chang was the music director and arranger for Aya Aziz's show Eh Dah? Questions for my Father (2016), which was a New York Musical Festival award winner. Chang performed with duo partner and cellist Diana Golden at Montreal's Conservatoire de musique et d'art dramatique du Québec, hosted by the Société de recherche et de diffusion de la musique Haïtienne. As a collaborative pianist, Chang has worked for opera companies such as The Bronx Opera, the Garden State Opera, and OperaRox.

Chang holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Institute in Baltimore where he studied with Benjamin Pasternack and he is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Lydia Brown. Learn more at www.shawnchangcomposer.com.

1. Justin Élie - Légende créole transcribed for cello and piano [5:10]

Werner Jaegerhuber - Petite Suite in C minor for solo cello

3. II. Menuetto: Andante [3:30]

5. IV. Tema contrapunctistica [1:48]

Frantz Casséus [arr. Julio Racine] - Suite haïtienne for cello and piano

10. Carmen Brouard - Duo Sentimental for cello and piano [5:06]

Julio Racine - Sonate à Cynthia for cello and piano

14. Daniel Bernard Roumain - Femiel from One Loss Plus transcribed for cello and piano [5:21]

15. Jean "Rudy" Perrault - Still Around for solo cello [5:22]

16. Jean "Rudy" Perrault - Brother Malcolm... for cello and piano [7:47]

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An Album that Celebrates Haiti's Rich Art Music Traditions Through Cello and Piano Works by Iconic 20th and 21st Century Haitian Composers [Julio Racine (b. 1945) and Justin Elie (1883-1931) are profiled at AfriClassical.com] Out October 23, 2020 on New Focus Recordings New York, NY (August 27, 2020) - On Friday, October 23, 2020, cellist Diana Golden releasesan album that celebrates Haiti's rich and fascinating art music traditions, on New Focus Recordings.

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Clarinet music by Female Composers - new book

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Clarinet music by Female Composers - new book

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Oh, you lucky clarinettists - lots to discover here!

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Details for: Klarinettenmusik von Komponistinnen : 18 Stücke für Klarinette (A und B) und Klavier = Clarinet music by female composers : 18 pieces for clarinet (A and B♭) and piano / › Royal Conservatoire of Scotland catalog

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Material type: ScorePublisher: Mainz : Schott, [2020]Copyright date: ©2020Description: Piano score (99 pages) + 1 part ; 31 cm.Other title: Clarinet music by female composers : 18 pieces for clarinet (A and B♭) and piano.Related works: Container of (work): Schleicher-Krähmer, Caroline, 1794-1873.…

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Music by Women Composers - in RCS Whittaker Library Catalogue

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Music by Women Composers - in RCS Whittaker Library Catalogue

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Students, teachers - get stuck in! Plenty to choose from here.

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BA Production Arts & Design : Costume : Radial Projection Pattern Books

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Publishing music by women - Hildegard Publishing Co.

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Publishing music by women - Hildegard Publishing Co.

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Hildegard Publishing - always a good source of repertoire.

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Thank you for visiting Hildegard Publishing Company. Our publishing mission is to seek out and publish compositions by women composers which display the highest level of excellence and musical merit. Because works by women composers have been historically overlooked and undervalued, our hope is to make these gems more widely available for concert performance. Our publishing mission reaches to all centuries including the present day and extends to a wide range of musical forms and genres. Whether your visit with us is exploratory in nature or you are seeking a specific work, we hope you enjoy your visit!

If you would like to receive news about new publications, events and other items of interest, please take a moment to sign up for our email mailing list at the top of this page.

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Thank you for visiting Hildegard Publishing Company. Our publishing mission is to seek out and publish compositions by women composers which display the highest level of excellence and musical merit. Because works by women composers have been historically overlooked and undervalued, our hope is to make these gems more widely available for concert performance.

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Six composers join ABRSM mentor scheme as pilot hailed a success

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Six composers join ABRSM mentor scheme as pilot hailed a success

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RCS Graduate Amit Anand and doctoral student Ben Lunn win places on ABRSM mentoring scheme! Read on ...
'Six emerging composers from diverse backgrounds have been selected to join ABRSM’s landmark mentoring scheme after the resounding success of a pilot programme last year.

The six-month Writing for Music Education programme aims to demystify the process of writing for music education, encouraging composers from a broad range of backgrounds to write for exam syllabuses and a range of other educational contexts, so they can, in turn, inspire the diversity and musical progression of generations of new musicians.

The 2022 cohort was selected with help from the Ivors Academy, Black Lives in Music and the Musicians’ Union, and includes Amit Anand, Ben Lunn, Florence Anna Maunders, Hyokyung Jung, Michael Betteridge and Natalie Bleicher.'

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Six emerging composers from diverse backgrounds have been selected to join ABRSM's landmark mentoring scheme after the resounding success of a pilot programme last year.

The six-month Writing for Music Education programme aims to demystify the process of writing for music education, encouraging composers from a broad range of backgrounds to write for exam syllabuses and a range of other educational contexts, so they can, in turn, inspire the diversity and musical progression of generations of new musicians.

The 2022 cohort was selected with help from the Ivors Academy, Black Lives in Music and the Musicians' Union, and includes Amit Anand, Ben Lunn, Florence Anna Maunders, Hyokyung Jung, Michael Betteridge and Natalie Bleicher.

ABRSM Executive Director Lincoln Abbotts said: " Writing for Music Education is about exploring the wonderful opportunities that exist within music education and opening up this world to composers of all backgrounds and experiences. We're delighted to be working with this diverse group of talented musicians.

"We hope the programme content will be engaging and a lot of fun. What's even more exciting is that the programme will connect participants with our wide range of partner organisations, broadening the range of educational contexts in which they may find work as composers in the future. Ultimately, we hope this will contribute to the creation of an even richer pool of music for learners to enjoy and explore."

Mentees will be mentored by composer and educator Sarah Watts and musician and workshop leader Andy Grappy throughout and will receive specialist support and guidance from leading composers and educators as they complete a series of compositional tasks relating to a wide range of educational contexts.

They will also have the chance to get to know ABRSM partner organisations, including the National Open Youth Orchestra, National Children's Orchestras of Great Britain, National Youth Jazz Orchestra, National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, London Music Fund and Royal Philharmonic Society.

Last year's pilot programme resulted in two of the composers, Shruthi Rajasekar and Kristina Arakelyan, receiving commissions to write pieces for ABRSM's latest piano syllabuses.
Note to editors:
1. Composer profiles:

Amit Anand is an Indian composer currently based in Scotland. His musical training started with the tabla, an Indian percussion instrument, and his interest in western classical music and desire to learn the techniques of composition, orchestration, arranging and harmonising led him to complete his BMus in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Amit's music has been performed by prominent ensembles in Scotland including Red Note Ensemble and Scottish Freelancers Ensemble, and since graduating he has launched Pianoshaale, an online piano academy in the regional languages of India as part of Amit's aim to make western classical music more accessible and inclusive.

Amit said: "I am very excited to be chosen as one of the mentees for this year's mentoring scheme and am confident that it will not only make me a better pedagogical composer but also a better educator."

Ben Lunn is winner of two Scottish Music Awards 2020 for his work with Hebrides Ensemble and Drake Music Scotland, Ben Lunn is associate artist for Drake Music and Drake Music Scotland, and Trainee Artistic Director of the Hebrides Ensemble.

Current projects include a large-scale work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra which was supported by the PRS Foundation's Composers' Fund, as well as a concert of chamber works featured in Durham Brass Festival 2022. In 2021, Ben helped found the Disabled Artist Network, an organisation which is bridging the gap between the professional world and disabled artists.

He said: "Education is the vital ingredient to allow someone to enter the world of music. If we want our artform to better reflect society, we must do everything we can to make sure the fundamental nature of education is equal, open, and accessible.

Florence Anna Maunders is a multi award-winning UK-based composer and performer. She began composing as a teenager, graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music and then took a long break from writing music, concentrating on performing, teaching, arranging, conducting and electronic music production.

In 2018 she returned to composition with a bang, winning a series of prizes, awards and commissions, and seeing her music performed extensively in the UK, Europe, the USA and around the world. Florence is currently working on commissions for internationally renowned organisations such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, The Arc Project, Third Coast Percussion and the Wigmore Hall alongside an array of other projects, and she is about to embark on a PhD in composition at Cardiff University, where she has the Postgraduate Studentship in Music.

She said: "I'm massively grateful to ABRSM for this opportunity to develop as a composer, and to explore the vast possibilities of composing contemporary music for education."

Hyokyung Jung is a South Korean guitarist and composer with various musical loves from across the spectrum, including jazz, rock, funk and fusion, which produce unique styles and tones. With a huge interest in jazz-rock fusion, her compositions are heavily inspired by guitarists such as Gilad Hekselman, Adam Rogers, Mike Stern, and Kurt Rosenwinkel. At the same time, Hyokyung combines original ideas from her background, such as traditional Korean rhythms and jazzy voicings, which have inspired her arrangements/original material.

She said: "I feel lucky to be part of the ABRSM composer mentoring programme because I can chat with fabulous composers/mentors and explore the world of composing for music education! I'm also very excited to write for some specific educational situations with my unique musical background."

Michael Betteridge is a composer based in Manchester with an eclectic output mainly centred around voice, theatre, and working with young musicians and leisure time music makers. He has worked with, and created work for, organisations such as BBC Philharmonic, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Cheltenham Festivals, London Symphony Orchestra, Opera North, and Psappha. He is artistic director of The Sunday Boys - an open access low voiced LGBTQ+ choir based in the heart of Manchester.

Michael said: "I have worked a lot in a variety of music education settings, both formal and informal, however this mentoring programme with ABRSM will give me a much deeper insight into the world of music education in this country and beyond. When I studied for ABRSM exams when younger I learnt music by Bernstein, Britten, and many other LGBTQ+ composers and I wish then I knew more about their lives beyond their music in order to understand myself and my own music making better."

Natalie Bleicher is a pianist, composer and piano teacher living in Hertfordshire. She studied at Junior Trinity, New College, Oxford and King's College London, and currently studies piano with Thalia Myers. As a composer Natalie has written exam pieces for piano, electronic keyboard and harp, and her open score work 'Thalassa' is published by CoMA (Contemporary Music for All). She teaches piano privately and at York House School, and is accompanist for Fortune Green Choir in West Hampstead and for Mini Mozart classes in St Albans.

2. The pilot cohort, selected with help from The Ivors Academy, included composers Andrew Chen, Shruthi Rajasekar, Su Ting Han, Kemal Yusuf, Kristina Arakelyan and James B. Wilson.

3. Established in 1889, ABRSM is one of the UK's leading music education organisations, one of its largest music publishers and the world's leading provider of music exams, offering assessments to more than 600,000 candidates in over 90 countries every year. ABRSM's mission is to inspire achievement in music. It does this globally by supporting music teaching and learning worldwide in partnership with four Royal Schools of Music: the Royal Academy of Music; Royal College of Music; Royal Northern College of Music and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

4. The Ivors Academy is the UK's independent professional association for music creators. The Academy represents and champions a diverse, talented community of songwriters and composers. It is a self-funded not-for-profit organisation, relying on the continued support of members and partners to carry out its work. The Academy is known internationally for The Ivors. An Ivor Novello Award is the pinnacle in the career of many songwriters and composers. www.ivorsacademy.com
Media enquiries to Jon Flinn on 07811 397122

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Six emerging composers from diverse backgrounds have been selected to join ABRSM's landmark mentoring scheme after the resounding success of a pilot programme last year.

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Anti-Racist Scholar Activism, a book we could buy for the library

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Anti-Racist Scholar Activism, a book we could buy for the library

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If you're a registered reader at RCS, do let us know if this would interest you!

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This book focuses on anti-racist scholar-activism in the margins of universities in the United Kingdom. The book raises questions about the future of Higher Education in the UK, and shines a spotlight on those academics who are working within, and often against, their institutions. Through the accounts of participants, the authors argue that another university is not only possible, but is essential. Working towards a manifesto for scholar-activism in the books conclusion, the book explores a range of concepts that might be thought to guide scholar-activism, including reparative theft, working in service, digging where you stand, and constructive complicity. Throughout, the authors show scholar-activism to be something that is complex and multifaceted, and better thought of as a form of practice, rather than an identity that can be attained.

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This book focuses on anti-racist scholar-activism in the margins of universities in the United Kingdom. The book raises questions about the future of Higher Education in the UK, and shines a spotlight on those academics who are working within, and often against, their institutions. Through the ac...

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Curating Discomfort:  lecture given by Zandra Yeaman on 17th January 2022. 

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Curating Discomfort:  lecture given by Zandra Yeaman on 17th January 2022. 

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A new approach to museum curation: Zandra's lecture about her work, given to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

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Hunterian Academic Blogs: Curating Discomfort

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Hunterian Academic Blogs: Curating Discomfort

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A staff post from Zandra Yeaman, Curator of Discomfort at The Hunterian.

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After many years of agitating and campaigning for change within cultural and heritage institutions from the outside, I find myself working on the inside with The Hunterian as their Curator of Discomfort. Since my post has been publicised, many people have been curious and some will ask, What does Curating Discomfort actually mean?

To help create an understanding I want to take you back to 1999 and the Macpherson report. The report was prompted by the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence that sparked a debate about policing and racism.

The report not only highlighted racial discrimination within policing, but institutional racism and inequality in all areas of society. Section 2.19 read, 'Radical thinking and sustained action are needed in order to tackle it head on, not just in the Police Services of our country, but in all organisations and in particular in the fields of education and family life.' The report was a time for pause. For education, culture and heritage institutions such as museums to update policy in line with amended legislation but also to explore culture, national heritage and identity.

22 years after Macpherson we find ourselves discussing and exploring these issues once again. Should statues stay or go, should we be renaming our streets and buildings? Why do we not learn about this in school? Do museums need to 'decolonise? The debate is welcome and there is no doubt this has brought much of Scotland's history and links to empire and slavery into wider public understanding. However, the real work is not founded on more symbolic gestures but rather on finally addressing the legacy itself.

In Scotland, the personal and specific historical contexts belonging to people of African, Caribbean and Asian descent link to empire, transatlantic slavery, colonialism and migration, each of which have an extensive impact on Scotland's economic, demographic, environmental, cultural and social development. Despite this, the histories of these communities are not acknowledged and represented as well as they should be within history, heritage, arts and culture work in Scotland today.

One of the ways forward is to ensure that everyone understands what we mean by this legacy. To do this we need to acknowledge that the concept of different 'races' and 'racial groups' and the false notions of racial superiority developed during the 18th, 19th and early 20th century are not attitudes that have been left in the past. These ideologies were used to justify the buying and selling of human beings, genocide, looting and plundering. To validate these abhorrent acts an ideology had to be created and this was developed and influenced the social attitudes of the time.

In the present day, these notions still have an influence in all areas of life in Scotland to some degree, from social attitudes, to the way organisations are run, permitting inequalities for Black and minority ethnic people to continue over generations. This is known as 'structural racism'. It can be seen on a personal level in people's attitudes and behaviours; on a social level in how people talk to each other and make decisions; and on an institutional level in how organisations conduct their business ('institutional racism').

Most people now recognise that racist attitudes and language are unacceptable, but our cultural heritage sites are only now recognising they are not neutral and that for years they have been complicit in perpetuating the ideologies of the previous centuries. That they set a comfortable narrative that has omitted Scotland's complicity and direct involvement in slavery and colonialism. Therefore, re-writing this narrative will be a long process which will generate discomfort, but will also reveal a more truthful rendering of the past.

Curating Discomfort is looking at ways outside of traditional museum authority to explore the interpretation of contested collections and to design and deliver a series of museum interventions that takes the museum out of the institutional comfort zone. Exploring white supremacy as an economic and cultural system in which white western ideals control the power of the text, the material resources and ideas of cultural superiority.

Discomfort is necessary for genuine change. Addressing the legacy is neither only about debating what we do with the statues honouring the people who perpetuated a racist ideology, nor is it redecorating the structures built from the proceeds of the transatlantic and empire trades. Addressing the legacy is dismantling the structural (and institutional) racism that is perpetuated today and transforming comfortable narratives to include the uncomfortable unvarnished truth.

Projects such as Curating Discomfort will not change things overnight. As the Macpherson report noted, radical thinking needs to be accompanied by sustained action. What we need to do is to collaborate with anti-racist activists, communities, academics, heritage institutions and heritage professionals, to find a way to build a bridge of trust that is strong enough to bear the weight of the truth we are trying it deliver.

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After many years of agitating and campaigning for change within cultural and heritage institutions from the outside, I find myself working on the inside with The Hunterian as their Curator of Discomfort. Since my post has been publicised, many people have been curious and some will ask, What does Curating Discomfort actually mean?

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The Hunterian Museum's podcasts about Curating Discomfort

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The Hunterian Museum's podcasts about Curating Discomfort

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Four podcasts from the Curating Discomfort team.

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A Declaration of Discomfort

Most museums are monuments to a system that privileges some people over others and creates a narrative about the identity of nations or cities that institutions seek to project and protect.

Museums hold collections from donors who benefited from the practice of racial slavery, violent endeavours, forced removal and the systematic oppression of indigenous peoples.

Museums are political places.

'Curating Discomfort' puts forward discomforting provocations and interventions to help us to understand that museums have perpetuated ideologies of white supremacy: a political, economic and cultural system in which white western ideas control the power of the texts, the material resources and the actions that continue to underpin notions of cultural superiority.

Colonial systems, such as the British Empire, used these ideologies to justify the enslavement and colonisation of peoples and lands around the world. Museums developed within this context and they remain spaces that celebrate and memorialise colonial systems. Collections, displays and labels are a political act that have legacies rooted in colonialism.

We are only now recognising that we are not neutral and that we have, without consideration, been complicit in perpetuating the ideologies of previous centuries.

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Most museums are monuments to a system that privileges some people over others and creates a narrative about the identity of nations or cities that institutions seek to project and protect. Museums hold collections from donors who benefited from the practice of racial slavery, violent endeavours, forced removal and the systematic oppression of indigenous peoples.

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Curating Discomfort at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

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Curating Discomfort at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

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Sandra Yeaman, Curator of Discomfort, writes about the project and the process.

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Curating Discomfort was developed by The Hunterian to address historic power imbalances within the museum and across all our activities. As a starting point to change, Curating Discomfort intervenes in current museum practice to establish new models and narratives around the collection. It is the start of an ongoing process, striving to embed anti-racist practice into every aspect of our work.

So, what did we do?

Phase 1
Looking on the inside
We explored the motivations The Hunterian has for opening 'institutional' and 'curatorial' discourses around collections. Why is sharing museum authority with community stakeholders from a range of backgrounds important? In particular, we wanted to develop ways to ensure that stakeholders who historically are most under-represented are actively included with equity in the interpretation of collections.

Workshops across Scotland
The workshops discussed a brief history of the concepts of race. We explored the system of white supremacy and our part in perpetuating, consciously or not, that system.

Participants identified examples of this system within museums and society today. They explored ways to address the ways that current structures privilege some people over others. At the end of the workshop participants had a generated a list of actions to address these unearned privileges within the institution and to address the historical bias in the narrative of their displays.

Phase 2
Organisational change
Action planning and organisational change. Moving towards becoming a more ethical museum, as expressed in The Hunterian Strategy 2021-25.

Phase 3
'Curating Discomfort' is an intervention, not an exhibition
We invited a group of six people to form the Community Curators group. They are a group from different geographical backgrounds who have been in Glasgow for different lengths of time. They are academics, community activists, social justice campaigners and educators. They speak to this work as individuals with different interests and priorities. Over six months, they operated as a community to curate an intervention. The intervention you can see on display in the museum is just one part of the project and the first step towards us making the museum a more relevant and meaningful place for everyone.

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Curating Discomfort was developed by The Hunterian to address historic power imbalances within the museum and across all our activities. As a starting point to change, Curating Discomfort intervenes in current museum practice to establish new models and narratives around the collection.

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'Smith was a British female pioneer in 19th-century England [...] bathed in Mendelssohnian influence through her teachers, is well-orchestrated and compelling'

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Alice Mary Smith, featured on Classic FM

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Alice Mary Smith, featured on Classic FM

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Alice Mary Smith, the first British woman to have composed a symphony. Picture: Chandos

Have a listen to the first known symphony ever composed by a British woman - Alice Mary Smith's Symphony in C minor.

"Her music is marked by elegance and grace... power and energy," reads an obituary from The Athenaeum, on Victorian composer and musician Alice Mary Smith.

Smith was a British female pioneer in 19th-century England and her music, bathed in Mendelssohnian influence through her teachers, is well-orchestrated and compelling.

She published her first song in 1857, aged just 18. And six years later, she became the first known British woman to compose a symphony, with her Symphony No. 1 in C minor, which was performed by the Musical Society of London (listen below).

A review in The Illustrated London News read: "... Miss Smith's symphony especially, coming from the pen of a young lady, was a striking proof of sound studies and high attainments of the female votaries of the art in this country".

Here's a dive into Alice Mary Smith's life and music.
Read more: 21 of the greatest women composers in classical music >
Born in the 19th-century into a comfortable family, Alice Mary Smith showed impressive musical promise in her early years and took private lessons.

Years of practice paid off, and Smith went on to become a prolific composer in 19th-century England, writing two symphonies; several choral works, both sacred and secular; four piano quartets; three string quartets; a clarinet sonata; and six concert overtures.

She also composed two large stage works, including the operetta Gisela of Rüdesheim, and boasts one of the largest collections of sacred choral music by a woman composer.

Forever pioneering, Smith's anthems 'Whoso hath this world's goods' and 'By the waters of Babylon' mark the first recorded instance of music by a woman composer to be used for the liturgies of the Church of England.
Read more: Meet Amy Beach, the first American woman to publish a symphony >
In November 1867, the year she married lawyer Frederick Meadows White, she was also elected Female Professional Associate of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

In 1884, she was made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music. That same year, she fell ill and died of typhoid in London.

Since 2010, Smith's manuscripts have been housed in the Royal Academy of Music Library.

Today, her music is seeing a gradual revival. Her elegant 'Andante for Clarinet and Orchestra' (listen above) has been recorded by Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players for Chandos, along with her Symphonies in A and C minor.

The Athenaeum's 1884 obituary, published in full in Maestros, Original Obituaries of 101 Great Composers, concludes: "Her forms were always clear and her ideas free from eccentricity; her sympathies were evidently with the Classical rather than with the Romantic school."
Want to vote for Alice Mary Smith's music in the world's biggest survey of classical music tastes? Cast your vote before 14 March 2021 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame

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Ever heard of Alice Mary Smith, the first known woman in Britain to have composed a symphony?

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Have a listen to the first known symphony ever composed by a British woman - Alice Mary Smith's Symphony in C minor. "Her music is marked by elegance and grace... power and energy," reads an obituary from The Athenaeum , on Victorian composer and musician Alice Mary Smith.

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New record label raises profile of forgotten female composers

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New record label raises profile of forgotten female composers

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An article in the Guardian brings news to gladden our hearts!

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iza Lehmann, Alice Mary Smith and Adela Maddison were British composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but few today will know their names, let alone their music. Now they have been singled out by a new classical record label dedicated to raising the profile of female composers, many of whom have never been recorded and whose works have been "lost over time".

The label, which is called La Boîte à Pépites (the jewel box), will discover and record compositions that have rarely, if ever, been heard before, yet deserve "a good position in the standard musical repertoire".

Recent research by Donne, a charitable foundation focused on gender inequality within the music industry, found that only 747 out of almost 15,000 works performed by 100 orchestras from 27 countries in 2020-2021 were composed by women - a total of 5%.

Asked why female composersare overlooked, Gabriella Di Laccio, a soprano and founder of the Donne Foundation, told the Observer: "There are several reasons. One very important one is ignorance of the repertoire. People in positions to include this music either don't have time or their focus is not directed to learning what is available.

"Also, there is a fear of audiences not coming and, I'm sorry to say, prejudice. Unfortunately, we've been raised to believe that only men were genius composers. The unconscious bias is still present, which is very surprising."

The new label has been founded by French cellist Héloïse Luzzati, who says that unearthing and studying original manuscripts has enabled researchers to "exhume" some extraordinary compositions. "Too few of them are published and therefore even fewer recorded," she said.

The label's first release, to be launched in the UK on 30 September, is devoted to French composer Charlotte Sohy, who died in 1955. Luzzati described her music as "amazing ... impressionist ... with the colours of Ravel, Debussy or Chausson".

Asked why it has been ignored, she said: "If she had been a man, her music would have been known."

Unfortunately, we've been raised to believe that only men were genius composers

Gabriella Di Laccio

A 3CD boxset features world premiere recordings of piano, chamber and orchestral works, performed by the National Orchestra of Avignon-Provence, among others.

In the sleeve notes, Alexis Labat, the orchestra's executive director, writes: "The classical repertoire for symphonic formations covers over four centuries, and almost all of it is devoted to men ... How can we explain this incredible deficit of women composers in our concert seasons and our recordings?"

Luzzati said: "A few years ago, the question of the role of women in the history of music began to gain a certain importance in my life as a musician. How could I have spent so many years without ever having played a piece composed by a woman?"

It inspired her to establish the project "Elles - Women Composers", promoting female composers through a festival and a video channel.

The new record label is "expanding this mission" with a series of albums, each devoted to a single female composer. Its initial release in France in April proved "huge for someone who is unknown", Luzzati said.

Extensive research is yet to be done into various British composers, including Lehmann, who wrote hundreds of solo and ensemble songs, many of which were well-received in their day.

Scholar Derek Hyde has described her as one of the three "most outstanding women songwriters" of the 19th century.

Luzzati said that Lehmann has been unjustly forgotten. She praised the emotion of her music, noting that "the quality of the writing is extraordinary".

Next year, she plans to launch a music publishing-house: "Today, for example, we can hear Sohy's music but, if a musician wants to play it, they must first write to us. You cannot find sheet music on a website or in a sheet music store. Editing works that are not yet published is essential to rehabilitate the works of female composers."

She believes that, through such "positive discrimination", forgotten female composers will finally be appreciated - eventually doing away with the need for their own record label. "Today this is not yet the case and there is still so much music of female composers to discover."

Katherine Cooper, classical editor of Presto Music, which will be selling the recording, said: "I can't think of another label solely devoted to female composers. It's a great idea that someone is amplifying that and dedicating themselves to it. They are shining light on a lot of composers that are really poorly represented, if they're represented at all."

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New record label raises profile of forgotten female composers

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iza Lehmann, Alice Mary Smith and Adela Maddison were British composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but few today will know their names, let alone their music. Now they have been singled out by a new classical record label dedicated to raising the profile of female composers, many of whom have never been recorded and whose works have been "lost over time".

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"A non-profit educational company and publisher of high-quality easily-accessible materials striving to elevate the visibility of women composers and theorists."

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Music Theory - Music By Women - Advocate, Educate, Empower

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Music By Women is a non-profit educational company and publisher of high-quality easily-accessible materials striving to elevate the visibility of women composers and theorists.

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Eva died 30 years ago. Have you heard of her? Would you like to know more? See BlackPast.org

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Eva Jessye was a pioneer in the world of African American music and is recognized as the first black woman to receive international distinction as a choral director. She was born in Coffeyville, Kansas on January 20, 1895 to Albert and Julia Jessye, but was … Read MoreEva Jessye (1895-1992)

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Music by Black Composers - Repertoire Directories!

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Music by Black Composers - Repertoire Directories!

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Look for the repertoire pages! "Music by Black Composers’ repertoire directories are designed for performers, conductors, programmers, researchers, teachers, and students. Whenever possible, they include links for acquiring the sheet music, links to recordings, and other helpful information to aid in programming."

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Music by Black Composers aims to increase diversity in the world of classical music, and inspire Black students to pursue instrumental training.

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Shirley Graham Du Bois: Undeserved Obscurity

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Shirley Graham Du Bois: Undeserved Obscurity

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She was a composer, writer, novelist, playwright ... political activist ...

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Image from Wikipedia

Born in Indianapolis into a religious and politically active family (her father was an African Methodist Episcopal Minister), Shirley Graham Du Bois was a writer, playwright, novelist, composer and an activist for black rights.  The Harvard Radcliffe Institute has a page on this remarkable woman – and she features in Nathan Holder’s book for young adults, Where are all the black women composers?, which we have in the Whittaker Library.

Nathan Holder – Where are all the Black Women Composers?

There’s also an entry in Oxford Music Online:

Wright, J.  Du Bois, Shirley (Lola) Graham. Grove Music Online.

Shirley studied composition and orchestration in France in her early thirties, and then studied music at Oberlin College in the United States, also beginning a PhD in English and Education at New York University.  Nate Holder tells us that she worked for Morgan College and also studied at the Howard School of Music.

In 1932, she wrote an opera, Tom Tom: an Epic of Music and the Negro, in which four West African protagonists portray the fight for freedom from slavery.  You can see the entire digitized score on the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s website , along with a number of other interesting links about other aspects of her life.  Nate Holder remarks that it was ‘the first race opera, and it received excellent reviews, with over 10,000 people attending the premiere.’ [Holder, p.21]

Listening To Tom-Tom by Shirley Graham Du Bois | Full Concert & Conversation:-

Why, then, can we find no published scores by Shirley Graham Du Bois?  The absence of published works highlights the inequality of being not only a woman, but a woman of colour, in the early twentieth century.  There’s nothing mentioned on the Harvard Radliffe Institute’s website, nothing in Jisc Library Hub Discover, nothing in WorldCat – and nothing on the Presto Music online music shop website.

As we mentioned, Shirley Graham Du Bois was also a playwright –  WorldCat does reference several manuscripts in this category of her output – and she wrote biographies of other famous people of colour, too.  One famous biography is the one she wrote about emancipationist Frederick Douglass: There was once a slave … : the heroic story of Frederick Douglass (New York: Julius Messner, 1947).

In 1959 and 1963, Shirley and her husband went to Maoist China, and you can read more about those expeditions in a 2013 article by Yunxiang Gao – ‘W E B and Shirley Graham Du Bois in Maoist China’ (Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 10(1), 59-85. doi:10.1017/S1742058X13000040)

Searching their names on Catalogue Plus https://rcs.koha-ptfs.co.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-main.pl will yield a large amount of scholarship.

Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois, by Gerald Horne (2002).

We’re ordering this biography about Shirley Graham Du Bois herself, so watch out for its appearance in our library catalogue!

It’s only fair to say that her husband, W. E. B. Du Bois was more famous.  He, too, was an author and an activist.  A book that he wrote in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, ran to many editions.  In it, he writes (amongst other things) about ‘The Sorrow Songs’.  In a fascinating and highly informative article in TDR journal, Professor Tracy C. Davis says that W. E. B. Du Bois pointed out,

‘that Stephen Foster, a leading composer of blackface minstrel tunes […] “incorporated whole phrases of Negro melody” [Davis is quoting Du Bois’ words here.]
Tracy C. Davis, ‘”I long for my home in Kentuck”: Christy’s Minstrels in Mid-19th-Century Britain’, TDR, Summer 2013, pp.38-65.

Davis goes on to say that,

‘Other white American songwriters were influenced by slave songs, but by and large when the so-called Negro minstrels imitated the songs of the South, they debased what Du Bois characterised as “the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment”, that “tell[s] of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.” ‘

Clearly both Shirley Graham Du Bois and her husband were inspirational individuals, ahead of their time. They deserve for their legacy to be better known.

YouTube: Shirley Graham Du Bois speaking at UCLA 11/13/1970

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Florence Price was the BBC's Composer of the Week back in 1920. Listen here ...

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Donald Macleod uncovers the story and prolific output of American composer Florence Price

Donald Macleod uncovers the story and prolific output of American composer Florence Price.

Florence Price became a highly successful classical composer, organist, pianist and teacher of music during the twentieth century in America. She was the first African-American woman to be recognised as a composer of symphonic music, and also the first African-American woman to have her works performed by one of the world's leading orchestras. In collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, BBC Radio 3 launched the Forgotten Women Composers Project. Championed by the composer and educator Shirley Thompson, Florence Price became a particular focus for the project. Scores by Florence Price were located and recorded by BBC Orchestras and Choirs. It will be the first time Florence Price has been featured on Composer of the Week, and the series is supplemented by many specially recorded works. Over the course of the episode, we'll hear about the impact racial prejudice and marriage had on her life and career, her battles for recognition, ultimate fame, and her prolific output, despite health issues late in life.

Music featured:
The Deserted Garden
Sonata in E minor (Andante - Allegro)
Suite for Organ No 1 (Fughetta and Air)
The Oak
Violin Concerto No 2
My Dream
Cotton Dance
The Old Boatman
The Moon Bridge
My Soul's been anchored in the Lord
Symphony No 1 in E minor
Song for Snow
Sinner Don't Let This Harvest Pass
Poem of Praise
Piano Concerto in D minor
Dances in the Canebrakes
Suite for Organ No 1 (Toccata)
Sonata in E minor (Andante)
Sympathy
The Glory of the day was in her face
Resignation
Symphony No 3
The Goblin and the Mosquito
Concert Overture No 2
Five Folksongs in Counterpoint (Drink to me only with thine eyes)
Night
My Soul's Been Anchored in the Lord
Violin Concerto No 1 in D major

Presented by Donald Macleod
Produced by Luke Whitlock for BBC Wales

For full tracklistings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Florence Price
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwf0

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we've featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

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BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Florence Price

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Donald Macleod uncovers the story and prolific output of American composer Florence Price Donald Macleod uncovers the story and prolific output of American composer Florence Price. Florence Price became a highly successful classical composer, organist, pianist and teacher of music during the twentieth century in America.

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Brand new CD released May 2022. The Whittaker Library will be ordering this too.

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Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": I. Allegro moderato

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": II. Andante con moto

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": III. Scherzo

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Nonet, Op. 2 "Gradus ad Parnassum": IV. Finale

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Trio: I. Moderato

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Trio: II. Scherzo

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Trio: III. Finale

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Quintet, Op. 1: I. Allegro con moto

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Quintet, Op. 1: II. Larghetto

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Quintet, Op. 1: III. Scherzo

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Quintet, Op. 1: IV. Allegro molto

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective - Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet [Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective] [Chandos: CHAN 20242]

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Listen to Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet [Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective] [Chandos: CHAN 20242] by Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective.

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The Whittaker Library will be ordering this.

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Piano Quintet in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 67: I. Adagio

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Piano Quintet in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 67: II. Adagio espressivo

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Piano Quintet in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 67: III. Allegro agitato

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Dover Beach, Op. 3

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective & Matthew Rose

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Piano Quintet in A Minor: I. Allegro non troppo

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Piano Quintet in A Minor: II. Andante con moto

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Piano Quintet in A Minor: III. Juba. Allegro

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Piano Quintet in A Minor: IV. Scherzo. Allegro

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

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Listen to content by Kaleidoscope Collective.

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A woman composer who is going places!

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LATEST NEWS - 2022
​

RPS Composers Programme 2021/22
​I am thrilled to announce that I am one of the seven composers newly joining the 2021-22 RPS Composers programme. The RPS Composer programme represents some of the brightest, most exciting voices in the UK!
Introducing RPS 2021-22 cohort:
, , , Alex Ho (), Zakiya_leeming, ,
Over the course of the coming year, the 2021-22 #RPSComposers will work with and write a new composition for one of RPS's partner organisations: Cheltenham Music Festival (), , , , , and the Chorus of .

Angela Slater - writing for Music in the Round. Angela's music explores dialogues between science, visual arts, dance and politics, and the ways these can be expressed musically. She is particularly passionate about raising the profile of female artists, namely through Illuminate Women's Music of which she is the Founder and Director.

INMF's inaugural New Voices Competition 2021
The winners of INMF's inaugural New Voices Competition 2021 have been announced🎊! Their pieces will be premiered by @robertdemainecellist, Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and broadcasted as the opening concert of our Summer Festival on Sunday, August 1st. Stay tuned for more details!!

Angela's solo cello work Woven half dreams ​will receive its US premiere by Robert Demaine on 1st August 2021. More details to come.

Angela has been invited to participate in the virtual Fresh Squeezed Vocal Lab. This lab provides composers with an opportunity to work with the renowned vocalists of Fresh Squeezed Opera to develop a new or workshop an old piece for voice. Masterclasses and demonstrations from FSO members will help composers expand their knowledge of vocal writing. Fresh Squeezed Opera
FRESH SQUEEZED VOCAL LAB​ 2021

Angela is working with Baritone Daniel Klein and pianist Felix Jarrar on her new work Tucked Beneath for baritone and piano.

​The International Society for Contemporary Music's World Music Days Festival kicks off in Beijing this 2018! The shortlist for the British Section's composer candidates has now been announced...

I am delighted to have made the British shortlist for the ISCM World Music Day for Beijing in 2018!
​

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RPS Composers Programme 2021/22 ​I am thrilled to announce that I am one of the seven composers newly joining the 2021-22 RPS Composers programme.

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Founded by Angela Elizabeth Slater

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In Autumn 2021 Illuminate 2021 Season I and II returned to live concerts!

In autumn 2021 Illuminate Women's Music is presented two seasons of concerts and composers. These concerts were rearranged from our original 2020 plans and we were delighted to finally present a series of concerts with performers in residence Naomi Sullivan & Kumi Matsuo (Season I saxophone and piano), and Rachel Fryer & Ivana Peranic (Season II cello and piano) presenting works by Season I and II composers: Angela Elizabeth Slater, Blair Boyd, Sarah Westwood, Lara Poe, Nina Danon, Rachael Gibson, Carmen Ho, Michele Abandono, Chloe Knibbs, and Hayley Jenkins.

Top row (left to right): Nina Danon (Composer) Rachael Gibson (Composer), Angela Elizabeth Slater (Composer, Blair Boyd (Composer) Bottom Row (left to right) Lara Poe (Composer), Naomi Sullivan (Saxophonist) and Kumi Matsuo (pianist)

Top row (left to right): Sarah Westwood (Composer), Michele Abondano (Composer), Carmen Ho (Composer), Chloe Knobs (Composer) and Hayley Jenkins (Composer) Bottom row: Rachel Fryer (Pianist) and Ivana Peranic (Cellist)

Illuminate 2019 reviews
‘If Illuminate returns you should go and hear for yourself’

Richard Bratby, Spectator

The Illuminate string quartet made a splendid debut, joined by a solo soprano in a programme that featured not one, not two, but six world premieres by women composers alongside music by neglected predecessors. This important project is proving what many - yet too few, still, in the wider musical world - know already: that women have always composed music of exceptional quality, and that increasing numbers are doing so today.”
​
Steph Power, composer, writer, critic

We need your support!

Below you can support current and future Illuminate seasons and activities. We need your support to continue the work we do in shining a light on the work of women composers from both the past in present. Illuminate Women's Music is voluntary led by our composers in residence and we need your help and support in continuing this wonderful and vital work. ​

Photo courtesy of Christine Turner from 2018 concert series

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Illuminate - shining a light on the work of women composers and performers

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The Whittaker Library is ordering their book, We Mark Your Memory: Writing from the Descendents of Indenture

https://www.commonwealthwriters.org/we-mark-your-memory/

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We support and connect storytellers across the Commonwealth

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An Introduction to Neurodiversity for the Lighting Designer and Educator

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An Introduction to Neurodiversity for the Lighting Designer and Educator

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In this Routledge publishers' blog (21 Jan 2022), 'In this blog, Deanna Fitzgerald, author of The Heart of Light, asks: What is neurodiversity? How can lighting designers ensure neurodiversity is considered in their work, and how can educator's ensure that neurodiverse students can thrive in their studies?'

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In this blog, Deanna Fitzgerald, author of The Heart of Light, asks: What is neurodiversity? How can lighting designers ensure neurodiversity is considered in their work, and how can educator's ensure that neurodiverse students can thrive in their studies?

What is Neurodiversity?

It depends on who you ask and what the context of the conversation is. Last year I engaged a trusted dramaturgy colleague to review my lighting design writing through an inclusivity lens. While language that was subtly unwelcoming in terms of race, gender, and physical ability were apparent when pointed out, my colleague also made notes about "the neurodiverse reader". I realized that I wasn't sure what "neurodiverse" really meant. My follow-up homework left me with more questions than answers, but I offer here some things I've learned that may be helpful for the lighting designer / educator to know.

Credit: Adobe Stock/MedRocky

In a dictionary sense, neurodiversity and neurodivergence refer to the atypical ways that a person's brain may process information. To be any more specific than that requires context. The spirit of the word often signifies an effort to de-stigmatize labels that are sometimes thought of as a problem, like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other realities that can make living in a one-size-fits-all world challenging. None of these differences inherently prevent a person from being able to experience a performance, follow a story line, collaborate on a creative project, or learn to design lighting. Still, the uninformed assumptions that go along with these labels cause people to be left out. The term neurodiversity is a way to reimagine these differences in a positive context, embracing the variety of human experiences. A little understanding on our part can remove unintended and unnecessary barriers for our audiences and our students.

Credit: Adobe Stock/ Atomazul.

Where in our discipline do we commonly encounter Neurodiversity?

For a little over a decade, a movement has been evolving to create " Autism-friendly", " Sensitivity-friendly" and " Relaxed" performances. These terms indicate different kinds of modifications and are usually defined on a production's accessibility pages. Initially this was an effort to create a judgement-free experience for people who have difficulty sitting through or making sense of the performance environment. Since then it has grown into a broader nationwide effort related to making deliberate adjustments to specific performances in order to create access for the range of neurodiverse audiences. When particular adjustments are deemed impractical because they will alter the story or the overall objectives of a production, other tools can help. These tools focus on preparing the audience member for things that may be difficult for them in the moment (such as narrative guides, which might be about the story, characters, or confusing details, or jarring moments) and on providing them ways to cope (such as "fidget devices", quiet spaces, or trained personnel to talk to). Allowing the brain to prepare can help a person manage a moment that might otherwise be difficult for them to sit through. Providing a place for them to retreat when they need a break can help make it possible for them to feel comfortable longer and come back when they are ready. These techniques are already used on Broadway (like upcoming autism-friendly performances of Come From Away, The Lion King, and Aladdin, for instance) and at prominent presenting organizations around the country ( American Repertory Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre, to name a couple of the Theatre Development Fund's national partners).

There are a number of artists and producing companies who specialize in creating performance for neurodiverse audiences and some have evolved into companies where neurodiverse people make performance. Spectrum Arts is a site with a collection of such organizations.

You may be surprised at the number of people you work with who identify as neurodiverse if you were to invite them to tell you. Many will not go out of their way to bring it up because of concern over the stigma, but don't mind talking about it in a safe environment. For instance, one professional lighting designer I spoke with was diagnosed with PDD (a mild form of autism), ADHD and dyslexia as a child, but he has an MFA in lighting design, works full time for a prominent lighting firm in New England, and is an active leader in the industry. Still, he didn't prefer for me to use his name because he knows there are assumptions made about what people can or cannot do when they hear those labels. He's happy to talk to anyone who is interested in being informed and he gave me some fascinating insights. I'd be happy to connect you with him.

Where do I start and what can I do?

If I've convinced you to want to know more, here are some online quick reads I found educational: " TDF 2020 planning guide for theatres"; " Lisa Carling: Interview with TDF Director of Accessibility Programs" (November 7, 2020); " Tailoring a Play for the Acutely Attuned" (December 12, 2014); " Meet the Man Who Makes Broadway Autism-Friendly" (January 27, 2017). There is also an upcoming session at the USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Technology) 2022 National Conference entitled " Neurodivergent Projects for Design Students" which will tackle "...how to build lessons that enable all students to share their different life stories and approaches to their art, creating a more inclusive classroom." ( A special thanks to session chair Paige Wilson for educating me about these concepts and efforts.)

It might also be time to reflect on your own resistance to adapting things. If you were trained like I was, you work hard to make the best possible choices for the production at hand and you may see that process as precious. But consider this: we adapt our initial ideas all the time - there are never enough lights, circuits, room to hang things, nor are hanging positions always exactly where we want them, and there's never enough time to tech, and there are always moments that can't materialize the way we imagined them. So is every choice really that precious? Some of them are - no argument from me on that distinction. But what if more people could experience your work if thoughtful changes were made to a specific version of the performance? Some theatres are going to do it without you - I heard from some who said they design for theatres who do relaxed performances, but that the necessary adjustments are made by the venue staff after they leave. This is not unlike the common practice of adding a spotlight for a sign language interpreter, but the changes are much more significant. And now consider this: a 2017 study referenced by the CDC estimated that 2.21% of US adults 18 years old and up are on the autism spectrum. That's almost 5 ½ million adults. If changing a strobe affect or an into-the-audience mover sweep, or even writing a paragraph about when to expect that effect and why you chose it, could make it possible for more of them to be included in your creation, would that be worth it?

What about our teaching? In some ways, the pandemic era is the worst time to ask teachers to re-evaluate because of adaptation fatigue, but on the other hand we know that higher education is experiencing some real sustainability threats (which are beyond the scope of this blog). If you could make small changes to be a better teacher to a broader population and subsequently be part of the solution, wouldn't it be worth it?

The designer I didn't name above said that he has trouble with non-verbal cues and representative language. So while in school, critique felt a greater challenge for him than his peers. He would often have trouble assessing the gravity of a comment and would misinterpret suggestions as confrontations. And because of his tendency to hyper-focus, and his non-linear way of composing things, interruptions to his workflow (particularly when cue setting) were disproportionately disruptive for him and probably often unnecessary. (He was going to get there, just not in the same order as his neurotypical peers.) He doesn't blame anyone for this since he rarely shares his diagnoses, but I can't help but wonder what we can accomplish if more of us were just a little more literate about all the different ways a brain may work and took the time to check in about it.

Here are some things you can do to create safer space for all of your students, but particularly those who are neurodiverse. First, be sure that your students know that this is something that you are learning about and that you open to adapting, when possible, to accommodate their learning styles and the way they can best receive critique. Next, vary your information delivery when possible - written, spoken, visual, aural, hands on, anything else creative you can think of. This will ensure that it reaches as many people with different processing varieties as possible. Also, say your student's name before you speak to them and make sure they are focused on you before you say it. Lastly, say what you mean and mean what you say. Metaphors, expressions, and slang can be confusing particularly for people on the autism spectrum. If you (like me) like to make jokes and use expressions to keep things light, make sure that what you really mean also comes through.

Credit: Photography by Tim Fuller. Courtesy of The Rogue Theatre. Pictured: Hunter Hnat and the cast of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Thought Experiment: Sensitivity considerations to learn about our creative self

When I was in grad school, a final year seminar project we did was to re-work one of our previously-realized designs, but for different venues. This is a skill required of a professional lighting designer, but also a way to assess whether or not we could work our creations in a dynamic way. I continue to enjoy this exercise as a thought experiment, because it asks us to think of our design as a living thing - something that can survive and perhaps even get better through adaptation. To complete the task successfully, the designer has to do more than just cut things that don't work in the new space, but must also look for opportunity. We have to figure out how to maintain the desired impacts in a different environment, with different hanging positions, and possibly different equipment and viewer perspectives. Even as a paper project, it provides an opportunity to get clear about what really matters in a design and all the different ways to get there.

What if we did a similar exercise for neurodiverse situations? In a design for a given show, what could be some effective alternatives to our bumps, sweeps, and jarring effects? What could we learn about our choices and the way we make our choices? I always encourage my students to consider if choices they've made are really the best choices for the moment or more about their taste preference. There's nothing wrong with having taste preferences (we should, of course), but being clear about our motivations behind a choice allows us to better anticipate how effective they will be and make us better designers. I wonder if an exercise with sensitivity-friendly adaptation could facilitate similar growth and ready the designer for when this adaptation is requested.

Whatever you find relevant to your situations, I hope you will take the time to think about the value of the unique experiences of your neurodiverse students and audiences, and do what you can to encourage and include all of them in this wonderful creative work we do.

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An Introduction to Neurodiversity for the Lighting Designer and Educator

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In this blog, Deanna Fitzgerald, author of The Heart of Light, asks: What is neurodiversity? How can lighting designers ensure neurodiversity is considered in their work, and how can educator's ensure that neurodiverse students can thrive in their studies? It depends on who you ask and what the context of the conversation is.

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Black History Month with the Incorporated Society of Musicians

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Black History Month with the Incorporated Society of Musicians

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"A Black History Month is eleven too few:
British composer Philip Herbert reflects on the nature of Black History Month as a contemporary musician, and how we can better celebrate Black History in the national curriculum, wider education, and through representation in the UK music industry."

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Opera singer and Artistic Director of Pegasus Opera Company, Alison Buchanon, gives her perspective on the annual inclusion of Rule, Britannia! in the Last Night of the Proms, as well as Prom-style events around the UK.

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The UK's professional body for musicians and subject association for...

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Opera singer and Artistic Director of Pegasus Opera Company, Alison Buchanon, gives her perspective on the annual inclusion of Rule, Britannia! in the Last Night of the Proms, as well as Prom-style events around the UK.

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Black male 'classical' composers you should know:-

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Black male 'classical' composers you should know:-

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Ideal for our trainee music teachers, we're proud to have copies of @N8Holder's book,Where are all the black female composers?  Nate also shares a list of black male composers, which we'll add to our portal page.

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Joseph Bo logne Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799)

Joseph was born in Guadeloupe but moved to France when he was 7. At the age of 27, after being known as a world-class fencer, Joseph made his debut as a solo violinist to the amazement of the audience. He composed a variety of different works in his life, including violin concertos, symphonies, sonatas and 6 operas. In 1775, Joseph was set to be named as the director of the Paris Opera by Louis XVI, but a petition was written by several artists at the Opera to stop this from happening, on accounts that they didn't want "...to be subjected to the orders of a mulatto". He volunteered to fight in the French Revolution, but legend has it, that he continued to give weekly concerts. He is often regarded as the first classical composer of African origin, and U.S. President John Adams referred to him as 'the most accomplished man in Europe'.

Further reading: https://www.artaria.com/pages/saint-georges-joseph-bologne-de-1745-1799

Listen to Joseph Boulogne Chevalier de Saint-Georges on
Scott Joplin (c.1868-1917)
Joplin grew up hearing his father play the violin, and his mother sing and play the banjo. He soon started playing the piano and was given free piano lessons by a Jewish man by the name of Julius Weiss who recognised his talents. Joplin studied classical and folk music, but found his playing option limited. He started to compose, and after a few publications did well, and 'Maple Leaf Rag' (1899) became the best selling rag in history. A string of hits followed, but Joplin began to write larger works and wrote his first opera called A Guest of Honor. He wrote the opera Treemonisha in 1911, but it wasn't until 1972 that it was finally fully performed. In 1970, Joplin was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Joplin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Further reading: https://www.biography.com/musician/scott-joplin

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Will Marion Cook (1869-1944)

Cook spent a year with his grandparents when he was 10, which exposed him to the roots of what he called 'real Negro melodies'. He decided to study the violin at Oberlin Conservatory, which led him to travel to Germany to study at the Berlin Hochschule für Music. He went on to study with composer Antonin Dvořák back in America, and in 1890, was appointed as the director for a touring chamber choir. He composed for the black-owned George Walker-Bert Williams Company, which produced musicals such as Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898) and In Dahomey (1903) which is considered to be the first musical to be written by black people to have been performed in a major Broadway theatre. He was also a teacher of Duke Ellington and the founder of the New York Syncopated Orchestra.

Further reading: https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200038839

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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Coleridge-Taylor was born in London, and showed his musical ability from an early age. He enrolled at the Royal College of Music when he was 15, and concentrated on composition, teaching at the Crystal Palace School of Music. Coleridge-Taylor's work was highly sought after, and his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, resulted in him being invited to tour the U.S.A. three times and meeting President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House in 1904 (it was extremely rare for a black man to be invited to the White House). Even though he died at the age of 37, he and his music were held in such high esteem, that King George V gave his widow £100 a year, and a memorial concert was held at the Royal Albert hall in 1912. In 1995, his opera called Thelma was discovered, and it was performed for the first time in Croydon, South London in 2012. His daughter Avril Coleridge-Taylor, went on to become a well respected composed and conductor in her own right.

Further reading: https://www.ism.org/blog/black-history-month-samuel-coleridge-taylor

Listen to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor on

Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960)

White's mother was an accomplished violinist, having studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. White started playing the violin after he was given a violin by his grandfather. He met the composer Will Marion Cook when he was 12, and began to have violin lessons with him. He continued playing the violin, studying at his mother's old conservatory and even travelled to London to have composition lessons with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. In 1916, he tried to form an organisation with Robert Nathaniel Dett called the National Associate of Negro Music Teachers but World War 1 interrupted the plans. It was formed in 1919, and White was named as a charter member. Like many of his peers, much of his music is based around the black American experience such as From The Cotton Fields (1920) and Legend d'Afrique (1955).

Further reading: https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200038858/

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Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943)

Dett was born in Ontario, Canada, and began playing the piano at 3, and started lessons at 5. He grew up playing in church, and attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio; the same conservatory William Grant Still would go on to attend. He toured as a concert pianist and was the first black student to finish the 5-year course in 1907. Not only did he become the first black music director of the Hampton Institute, but he founded the Hampton Choral Union, School of Music, Institute Choir and Musical Arts Society, all within a 20 year period. One of his most important pieces called Magnolia, was performed at the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor club in 1914, and he won a Holstein prize for the collections Religious Folksongs of the Negro (1927) and The Dett Collections of Negro Spirituals (1936). Much of his music is inspired by African-American folk melodies, which he often wrote in a European Romantic style. In addition to his musical exploits, he won the Bowdoin Prize in 1921 for his essay 'The Emancipation of Negro Music'.
https://nathanieldett.org/
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William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Still was surrounded by classical music as a young child, and by his teens was able to play multiple instruments including the viola, clarinet and double bass. He won a scholarship and studied with the composer Edgard Varèse at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music before he served in the US Army during World War I. During his career, he performed and recorded with the likes of bandleader Fletcher Henderson, clarinettist Artie Shaw and Paul Whiteman, before he became a full-time composer. His first symphony called Symphony No.1 "Afro-American" was performed all over the world, and he composed and arranged for films such as Pennies from Heaven (1937) and Blind Spot (1944). He received 10 honorary doctorates and won three Guggenheim Fellowships in his remarkable life.

Some of Still's accomplishments include

The first African American to conduct a major American Symphony Orchestra

The first African American to have an opera performed on national TV

The first African American to have an opera produced by a major opera company

The first African American to have his symphony performed by a major orchestra

http://www.williamgrantstillmusic.com/

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George Walker (1922-2018)
Walker was born in Washington D.C., and after having piano lessons for about 9 years, gave his first public recital when he was 14. He studied at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio and upon graduating, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and began a career as a pianist, teacher and composer. He was the first black performer to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a few years later, travelled and performed across Europe in 1954. He studied piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and went on to compose many works for a variety of different ensembles. He was the first black man to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1996, and received many honorary doctorates and other awards, including the Aaron Copland ASCAP Award in 2012.

Further reading: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-01-17/george-walker-composer

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Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson

Perkinson was named after Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and to some extent, followed in Coleridge-Taylor's footsteps by becoming an accomplished composer and teacher himself. He studied at various schools around New York and New Jersey, including the Manhattan School of Music and Princeton, before teaching at Brooklyn College and studying conducting in Austria and the Netherlands. As well as composing orchestral works, he also arranged music for Marvin Gaye, composed music for films such as Montgomery to Memphis (1970) and a ballet called For Bird, With Love, inspired by saxophonist Charlie Parker. He co-founded the Symphony of the New World, and even had the time to perform with the Max Roach quartet in 1964. In 2006, a music critic wrote that Perkinson's Sinfonietta No.1 for Strings (1955) "...might have been considered, if composed by a young Caucasian, the work of a wunderkind".

Further reading: https://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/Perkinson.html

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Julius Eastman (1940-1990)

Eastman started to play the piano when he was a 14-year-old living in Ithaca, New York, and while studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, majoring in composition. He was also an accomplished singer, and his performances led him to join a program to study avant-garde classical music at the SUNY Buffalo Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. He was a founding member of the S.E.M. Ensemble but left Buffalo after a big disagreement with composer John Cage. He returned to New York, and was soon performing internationally, and having his works performed by various ensembles in America. A biography was released in 2015 called Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music.

Further Reading: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/julius-eastmans-guerrilla-minimalism

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Wynton Marsalis (born 1961)

Marsalis was born into a very musical family, including his father Ellis Marsalis Jr, older brother Branford and young brothers Jason and Delfeayo all being internationally recognised jazz musicians and educators. Marsalis was given his first trumpet when he was 6, and performed a Haydn trumpet concerto with the New Orleans Philharmonic when he was 14. After his studies at Juilliard, he went on tour with Art Blakey and The Jazz messengers, Herbie Hancock, and later, his own quintet featuring his brother Branford. In 1983 when he was only 22, he became the first musician to win a Grammy Award in classical, and jazz music. So far, he has won the National Medal of Arts, 11 honorary doctorates and is an NEA Jazz Master. Some of his most notable compositions include Blood On The Fields (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1997), Congo Square (2006) Blues Symphony (2009) and Swing Symphony (2010).

https://wyntonmarsalis.org/

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Michael Abels (born 1962)

Abels started his musical journey playing the piano when he was 4 years old. He composed his first orchestral work when he was only 13, and studied at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. He composed Global Warming in 1992, which became one of the first works performed by a black composer, by the National Symphony of South Africa after Nelson Mandela was elected President. He composed a ballet called FALLING SKY (2020), but is best known for his score for the 2017 Oscar-winning film Get Out and the World Soundtrack Award-winning film Us (2019). His work on Us won him a Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle Award for Best Original Score, as well as a Critics Choice Award nomination for the same film. He co-founded the Composers Diversity Collective, which helps to give opportunities to film and game composers of colour in the US.
https://michaelabels.com/
Listen to Michael Abels on

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12 Black Male 'Classical' Composers You Need To Know

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Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) Joseph was born in Guadeloupe but moved to France when he was 7. At the age of 27, after being known as a world-class fencer, Joseph made his debut as a solo violinist to the amazement of the audience.

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For One Violinist, Elevating Music By Black Composers is a 20-Year Mission - Rachel Barton Pine

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For One Violinist, Elevating Music By Black Composers is a 20-Year Mission - Rachel Barton Pine

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Interview on NPR Music News

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For One Violinist, Elevating Music By Black Composers Is A 20-Year Mission

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Composers of color have long had to compete with dead white men for space on the concert stage. A new project, spearheaded by Rachel Barton Pine, seeks to correct that for the next generation.

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Violinist Rachel Barton Pine's huge database,

'Inspiring Black students to begin and continue instrumental training.'

'Making the music of Black composers available to everyone.'

'Helping to change the face of classical music through greater diversity'.

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Music by Black Composers aims to increase diversity in the world of classical music, and inspire Black students to pursue instrumental training.

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We made a reading list of all our books about dyslexia.

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Miles, T. R. (Thomas Richard), 1923- | Westcombe, John | Snowling, Margaret J.

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Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Library Catalogue

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We collated all our books about autism, Aspergers syndrome and neurodiversity. See if you like the look of any of them!

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Contents of Autism, Aspergers and Neurodiversity

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NEUK Manifesto for diversity in the arts

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NEUK Manifesto for diversity in the arts

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NEUK's manifesto for neurodiversity in the arts in Scotland is also available in a number of accessible formats. They also have a limited number of Braille copies available for those who need them.

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Our manifesto for neurodiversity in the arts in Scotland is also available in a number of accessible formats. We also have a limited number of Braille copies available for those who need them. If you would like a Braille copy, please email neukcollective@gmail.com.

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Our manifesto for neurodiversity in the arts in Scotland is also available in a number of accessible formats. We also have a limited number of Braille copies available for those who need them. If you would like a Braille copy, please email neukcollective@gmail.com.

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Creative Scotland’s Create:Inclusion project funded this group. There's a NEUK Manifesto, too ...

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NEUK - Neuk Collective is a new collective of neurodivergent artists, formed as part of a project funded as part of Creative Scotland's Create:Inclusion funding stream.

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Neuk Collective is a new collective of neurodivergent artists, funded by Creative Scotland's Create:Inclusion project

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From Cassandra's bio:- 'Dr Cassandra Miller (1976) is a Canadian composer of vocal, chamber and orchestral music, living in London, UK. Her works are published by Faber Music.'

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From Sky's bio:- 'The music of Baltimore-based composer, oboist, and installation artist Sky Macklay (b. 1988) is conceptual yet expressive, exploring extreme contrasts, surreal tonality, audible processes, humor, and the physicality of sound...'

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The music of Baltimore-based composer, oboist, and installation artist Sky Macklay (b. 1988) is conceptual yet expressive, exploring extreme contrasts, surreal tonality, audible processes, humor, and the physicality of sound. Some of her pieces incorporate intermedia and extramusical narratives, addressing topics ranging from commuting times to the side effects of contraceptive and assisted reproductive technology. As a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, her next project is a chamber music album that will synthesize her work as a composer and her raucous, multiphonic-rich oboe performance practice.

Sky has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chamber Music America (with Splinter Reeds and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble), the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (with Ensemble Dal Niente), the Barlow Endowment (with andPlay), the Jerome Fund for New Music (with ICE saxophonist Ryan Muncy), and Kronos Quartet's 50 for the Future project. Upcoming commissions include new works for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Klangforum Wien. As a Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, she is also collaborating with French ensemble 2e2m.

Sky's music has been recognized with awards and fellowships from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, Civitella Ranieri, and ASCAP, and has been featured at international festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek, The BBC Scottish Symphony's Tectonics Festival, and the ISCM World New Music Days. Since being recorded on Spektral Quartet's GRAMMY-nominated album in 2017, her iconic string quartet Many Many Cadences has been performed around the world by ten different quartets and is studied in dozens of university composition and theory classes.

As an installation artist, Sky has created and built a unique series of interactive harmonica-playing inflatable sculpture environments, which were supported by a New Music USA Project Grant and won the Ruth Anderson Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music. Harmonibots at the Waseca (MN) Art Center, MEGA-ORGAN at Judson Memorial Church in NYC, and Harmonitrees at Stetson Universityall use various flexible plastic shapes to channel air through deconstructed harmonicas, resulting in immersive microtonally-chorused triadic drones.

As an oboist, Sky has performed at Roulette, MATA, SPLICE Festival, the University of Louisville New Music Festival, and the Line Upon Line Winter Composer Festival. She is a founding member of the New York-based Ghost Ensemble, a group focused on collaborations with living composers and expanding perceptual horizons through shared immersive experiences. In their review of Ghost Ensemble's 2019 album We Who Walk Again, Sequenza21 said, "her command of multiphonics and microtones on the oboe is prodigious."

Originally from Minnesota, Sky completed her DMA in composition at Columbia University where she studied with George Lewis, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Fred Lerdahl. She also holds degrees from The University of Memphis (MM) and Luther College (BA). An enthusiastic practitioner of creative music education, Sky taught for nine summers at The Walden School Young Musicians Program in Dublin, New Hampshire, an acclaimed summer school and festival for pre-college composers. From 2018 to 2020 she was Assistant Professor of Music at Valparaiso University, and she is currently on the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Her music published by Edition Peters.
click here for complete CV New Music Box profile interview with VAN Magazine

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The music of Baltimore-based composer, oboist, and installation artist Sky Macklay (b. 1988) is conceptual yet expressive, exploring extreme contrasts, surreal tonality, audible processes, humor, and the physicality of sound. Some of her pieces incorporate intermedia and extramusical narratives, addressing topics ranging from commuting times to the side effects of contraceptive and assisted reproductive technology.

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From Catherine's bio:- 'Catherine Lamb (b. 1982, Olympia, WA. U.S.) is an active composer exploring the interaction of tone, summations of shapes and shadows, phenomenological expansions, the architecture of the liminal (states in between outside/inside), and the long introduction form. '

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Rising star, and an ABRSM mentor. Definitely worth watching!

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Shruthi Rajasekar | Composer and Vocalist

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Composer and vocalist Shruthi Rajasekar explores intersections of cultural and musical identity

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'Carola Bauckholt was born in Krefeld, Germany, in 1959. After working at the Theater am Marienplatz (TAM), Krefeld for several years, she studied composition at the Musikhochschule Köln with Mauricio Kagel (1978 - 1984).' Carola's CV is more than impressive! See her website.

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A composer of repute, published by Edition Peters. Watch out for more of her work in the RCS Library catalogue!

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International Women's Day 2020 - 'Blistering and virtuosic, depth and wisdom... women composers we should listen to' - see the Guardian newspaper's list!  (Article, 8 March 2020)

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Blistering and virtuosic, depth and wisdom... women composers we should listen to

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To celebrate International Women’s Day, we asked the UK’s leading conductors to nominate a composer who deserves wider recognition. From Azerbaijan to Israel, and symphonies to songs, here are 10 women whose voices will enrich your life

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Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

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Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

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"Craftsmanship, Creativity, Community, Eco-Citizenship"

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Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

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Announcing CREA (Composers for Racial Equity in the Arts) 2021-2022!

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Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

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More and more, I feel that life is mercilessly short so let's just see what happens if I were to open my home to my younger colleagues and provide emerging composers a little hard-earned counsel ("Don't make that mistake I made!"), opportunities to work with my amazing performer friends (&

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Five premieres, women composers, and the joy of composing new music

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Five premieres, women composers, and the joy of composing new music

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Blogpost on The Gramophone magazine website

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Over the next few weeks I will have the joy of performing premieres by the incredible composers Nicola LeFanu, Anna Appleby, Kristina Arakelyan, Joanna Ward and Lucas Jordan. Cancelled more than once because of the pandemic, these concerts - billed as 'New Music 2021' - have been a long time coming. They are part of a series of events organised by Donne, Women in Music with the support of the PRS Foundation, Wolfson College and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Having to wait so long has its benefits, however; I've enjoyed the extended collaboration with these wonderful artists, being part of the creative process in bringing new music to life.

When I started the project Donne, Women in Music - which is now a charitable foundation, bringing much inspiration to my life and to many artists around the world - I did so simply because I wanted to do my part, as a woman and as a musician, to celebrate the many women who were absent from my musical education, my professional career, and the concerts and productions I have been taking part in for so many years. Did I miss an important lesson at college? It certainly felt like it. We were not talking a few dozen women, we were talking thousands. The Donne Foundation aims to amplify the stories of these women, their music, their incredible contribution and their continuing inspiration.

So much has happened since my initial attempt back in 2018. What can just one soprano do? Well, as it turns out, more than one might think. And that's testament to the remarkable talent out there, which drives me on to make a difference. I am in contact with more than 2000 women composers worldwide. I joke often that I now need a parallel life to sing all the repertoire that I keep discovering. My husband now calls me an 'artivist', which I actually like! There are simply too many songs we still haven't heard, too many stories that still have to be told, too many names that we are still missing from our concert halls, too many role models who should be receiving protagonist roles in the music industry in order to inspire future generations.

There is much more to be done for women in music - Donne's latest Equality & Diversity in Concerts Halls survey shows that only five per cent of pieces played by 100 orchestras worldwide were composed by women. There is still much to be done to support new music by women. So, what better opportunity to raise awareness than these wonderful concerts? I've had a wonderful time preparing the repertoire with my very talented colleagues, Lucas Jordan (piano) and Clélia Iruzun (flute), and collaborating with the composers themselves.

The centrepiece of the programme is The Moth-Ghost by Nicola LeFanuspecially commissioned for this event. It sets a poem written by James Harpur describing the feelings of Thetis, a sea goddess of Greek mythology, mother of Achilles. It's a real privilege to perform a work with so much musical imagery, dramatic expression and nuance. In addition, the concert will present other pieces specially written for this performance by Kristina Arakelyan and Joanna Ward, as well as world- and UK-premiere performances by Anna Appleby and Lucas Jordan. I am grateful to them all for giving me the honour of performing their music.
'New Music 2021' is performed in London on October 21 at St James Sussex Gardens and in Oxford on October 27 at the Leonard Wolfson Auditorium. For more information about 'Donne, Women in Music', a charitable foundation that is here to make a positive change in the fight against gender inequality within the music industry, visit donne-uk.org

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Five premieres, women composers and the joy of performing new music

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Over the next few weeks I will have the joy of performing premieres by the incredible composers Nicola LeFanu, Anna Appleby, Kristina Arakelyan, Joanna Ward and Lucas Jordan. Cancelled more than once because of the pandemic, these concerts - billed as 'New Music 2021' - have been a long time coming.

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This month, Sophia Wellington, Head of Screenwriting at London Film School, will deliver an intensive online screenwriting masterclass.

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short circuit: screenwriting masterclass with sophia wellington

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short circuit: screenwriting masterclass with sophia wellington tickets

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Short Circuit: Screenwriting Masterclass with Sophia Wellington

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Eventbrite - Short Circuit presents Short Circuit: Screenwriting Masterclass with Sophia Wellington - Tuesday, 2 November 2021 - Find event and ticket information.

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Richard Antoine White's Unlikely Path to the Stage.

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Richard Antoine White's Unlikely Path to the Stage.

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subscribe to Fresh Air podcast

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Richard Antoine White spent his early childhood in poverty in Baltimore, at times sleeping in abandoned houses. He's now principal tubist in the Santa Fe Symphony and the New Mexico Philharmonic. He recounts his triumph over adversity in a new memoir called 'I'm Possible.'

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Tubist Richard Antoine White's Unlikely Path To The Stage : Fresh Air

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Richard Antoine White spent his early childhood in poverty in Baltimore, at times sleeping in abandoned houses. He's now principal tubist in the Santa Fe Symphony and the New Mexico Philharmonic. He recounts his triumph over adversity in a new memoir called 'I'm Possible.'

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'Standing on the Frontline of Diversity in Jazz and Classical Music'

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Black Lives in Music " Black Lives in Music

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we've beenNominated! Black Lives in Music are honoured to have been nominated for a National Diversity Award for 2021! It would be awesome if you spare a moment of your time to vote for us. Voting closes 7th June at 12pm. Vote for us Our Mission We are at the vanguard of the effort to combat [...]

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I heard a voice: A history of spirituals at Wigmore Hall

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I heard a voice: A history of spirituals at Wigmore Hall

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As part of Black History Month, we explore the history of these performances, which span a century of concerts given by some of the most significant Black artists of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

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The launch of Wigmore Hall's 2021/22 Season saw Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha take to the stage to sing 'He's got the whole world in his hands' - and in doing so, become the latest in what may seem a surprisingly long line of performers to bring the spiritual to the Hall. As part of Black History Month, we explore the history of these performances, which span a century of concerts given by some of the most significant Black artists of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

That said, the first recorded instance of a spiritual performed on the Wigmore Hall stage was as part of a collection of traditional songs from many lands sung by the white American mezzo-soprano Anne Thursfield. On 30 June 1919 she sang 'Nobody knows the trouble I've seen' and 'Didn't it rain', returning early the following year with a similar programme. Her take on spirituals as a form of folksong was echoed by a number of white singers throughout the early 20th Century, who would often end their evening of Lieder, Italian and English art song with a 'lighter' section of well-known traditional songs, sometimes with the understanding that the audiences might well join in.

Though the spiritual as concert music had begun to grow in global popularity during the 1900s and 1910s, with recordings made by the Fisk Jubilee Singers as early as 1909, it was with the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance around 1920 that a vogue began to sweep the globe. Opportunities for African-American and Black British performers to appear on what had previously been a white-dominated concert stage naturally followed, though perhaps not without limitations; some of these performances seem today to have an air of the novelty or the 'exotic'. The fact remains, though, that whether the artists felt constrained by stereotype or not, their very presence on the concert platform was unprecedented and groundbreaking.

Roland Hayes, the first recorded Black singer to include spirituals in a programme at Wigmore Hall, more than exemplified this over the course of his career. After huge success in America, he moved to England to study with George Henschel, and soon after gave his Wigmore debut on 28 October 1920. The repertoire of this concert, and of his concerts throughout the 1920s, featured French song, Lieder, spiritual arrangements and works by Black composers - a reflection not only of his determination to be regarded as a 'serious' concert artist bringing together what might have been seen as disparate musical worlds, but of the success he achieved in doing so.

It is too easy to assume that concertgoers at this time - themselves still mostly white - were there to be entertained by spirituals without engaging with their origins or the lives behind it, but this review from The Times of Hayes's concert on 22 April 1921 is revealing:

'...his more invaluable gift is that of personality, which came out most in the songs of his own country. He meant them; whereas some other people who undertake them sing them because they are 'quaint'. That practice ruins the song and stamps the singer; whoever cannot get inside a song makes it a sham and the singing a pose. ... At the end of the recital a curious thing happened. Nobody moved or took his eyes off the platform. They had had reality before them, and it had gone.'

That particular concert had ended with spirituals arranged by Hayes himself, as well as his accompanist Lawrence Brown, one of the key figures in early 20th-century African-American music. Later that year Brown and Hayes, along with white British composer Roger Quilter who accompanied his own compositions, gave a concert in aid of the then African Progress Union - a Black rights association founded in London in 1918, in part to promote knowledge of Black history and culture.

1921 also saw the first concert at the Hall by the Royal Southern Singers Quartet, a vocal group in the tradition of the Fisk Jubilee Singers (who would themselves appear at the Hall in 1925). Solo performances were given by John C. Payne and soprano Abbie Mitchell, who would go on to create the part of Clara in Porgy and Bess. Contemporary accounts place composer and arranger Harry Thacker Burleigh, who had been instrumental in introducing the spiritual to Dvořák in America and is still perhaps the best-known of all the turn of the century arrangers of spirituals, in the audience.

John C. Payne returned to the Hall several times, and most of his concerts consisted entirely of Black music - alongside spirituals were songs by J. Rosamond Johnson, Will Marion Cook, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Alex Rogers, and in 1930 he was joined by Black playwright Garland Anderson who introduced his concert with a talk on the history of the spiritual in the South.

J. Rosamond Johnson himself appeared at the Hall in 1927, accompanying his frequent concert partner Taylor Gordon in a complete programme of spirituals. They were followed in 1928 by the great contralto Marian Anderson, whose recital of Italian art song, Debussy, Lieder and songs by Quilter (again accompanying his own works) ended with spiritual arrangements by Burleigh and Brown.

The breadth of spiritual repertoire during this period and into the 1930s and 40s is extraordinary -over the course of the Hall's history, at least 119 different spirituals were performed, most of them in multiple different arrangements and the majority of them during these three decades. As time went on, any remaining aspect of 'novelty' to these concerts began to visibly dissipate. Black British tenor Basil Rodgers, who appeared several times in the 1930s including in a joint concert with the Antiguan pianist Bruce Wendell, introduced Wigmore audiences to the galling 'Mamma, is massa goin' to sell us to-morrow?'. On 11 July 1946, Trinidadian baritone Edric Connor followed a selection of spirituals with a reading of 'Minstrel Man' by Langston Hughes and a performance of Abel Meeropol's lynching protest song 'Strange Fruit'.

'Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?'
- from 'Minstrel Man' by Langston Hughes

Through the 1950s and 1960s, concerts by Black singers at the Hall began to settle into a pattern similar to the concerts given by Roland Hayes in the 1920s: conventional recital repertoire of Lieder and mélodie, with a selection of spirituals at the end. Artists during this period included coloratura soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs, the first Black singer to perform at La Scala; Muriel Smith, who had created the title role in Carmen Jones in 1943 and would go on to provide the vocals for 'Bali Ha'i' in the film of South Pacific; Ruth Reese, an African-American-Norwegian civil rights activist and writer; and trailblazing mezzo-soprano Grace Bumbry, who made her Wigmore Hall recital debut in 1959 after attending masterclasses given here by Lotte Lehmann.

By the 1970s and 1980s, the automatic presence of spirituals in the programme of Black singers was beginning to fade. This may have been driven by a greater understanding of, and perhaps attendant discomfort with, the origins of the music among contemporary audiences; it was certainly also a sign that at last it was possible for Black singers to give concerts with repertoire indistinguishable from that of white artists. Though they never disappeared altogether, these songs became a true rarity on the concert platform, absent almost entirely through the 1990s and into the 2000s, when Grace Bumbry returned to give a recital in which the first half was Berlioz and Fauré, the second half Burleigh and Hall Johnson.

On 14 October 2021, Wigmore Associate Artist Gweneth Ann Rand will join Allyson Devenish, Sarah Daramy-Williams and Cathy Tyson to perform a programme entitled In the footsteps of..., inspired by Bumbry, Marian Anderson and Jessye Norman and their appearances on the Wigmore Hall stage. The concert will begin and end with spirituals, in arrangements by Hall Johnson and Florence Price among others. Transcending its inspiration, in a way this concert will in fact follow in the footsteps of many other artists to appear at Wigmore Hall over the last 100 years - a legacy that deserves to be celebrated not just this Black History Month, but for many years to come.

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A history of spirituals at Wigmore Hall | News | About Us

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The launch of Wigmore Hall's 2021/22 Season saw Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha take to the stage to sing 'He's got the whole world in his hands' - and in doing so, become the latest in what may seem a surprisingly long line of performers to bring the spiritual to the Hall.

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Edited by Porsche McGovern (a lighting designer) this blog interviews and highlights theatre artists and administrators who are not as visible in the world of production and theatre operations: people of colour, members of the LGBTQ community, and women.

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It is a strange and trying time for all of us in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We certainly understand times are tough for you, as they are for us. We have been proud to bring Stage Directions for free all these many years and we will continue to provide you with complimentary subscriptions during the pandemic. However, we would like to ask in these difficult times that you consider a small donation to help support our efforts here at Stage Directions as we work to keep our industry up to date by providing you with a continuous stream of current and vital information when it is needed, today more than ever, to keep us all in the theater community connected.
Please Click Here to Support Stage Directions!

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It is a strange and trying time for all of us in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We certainly understand times are tough for you, as they are for us. We have been proud to bring Stage Directions for free all these many years and we will continue to provide you with complimentary subscriptions during the pandemic.

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10 ways to step up as an ally to non-binary people

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10 ways to step up as an ally to non-binary people

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Helpful advice from Stonewall

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10 ways to step up as an ally to non-binary people

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14 July is International Non-Binary People’s Day, which aims to celebrate the wide range of people worldwide who identify as non-binary. But do you know what it means to be non-binary? And do you know how you can better support non-binary people? Here are some ideas!…

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British Library dedicated pages

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In June 1948 the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex carrying hundreds of people from the Caribbean. 70 years on, Windrush Stories invites us to consider a longer, more complicated and ongoing relationship between Britain and the Caribbean.

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Laurie Taylor talks with scholar Ayanna Thompson about the troubled history of blackface minstrelsy - on Radio 4.

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Blackface and minstrelsy - Laurie Taylor explores a troubled history.

BLACKFACE & MINSTRELSY - At its most basic level, 'blackface' is the application of any prosthetic to imitate the complexion of another race. In theory, it's a performance available to all, yet 'whiteface' is relatively unknown. Laurie Taylor talks to Ayanna Thompson, Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, about the painful history of 'blackface', an ancient European theatrical device that the Europeans brought with them to America. What connects it to Blackface minstrelsy, a specific comedic performance tradition rooted in slavery, and why does this racist practice endure today?

Also, Christine Grandy, Associate Professor in History at the University of Lincoln, discusses the origins of the British Black and White Minstrel Show, a prime time, BBC variety programme which lasted for 20 years, from 1958-1978. She uncovers a little known history in which broadcasters, the press, and audience members collectively argued that the show had nothing to do with race whilst the complaints and anger of Black people were dismissed. Thinking Allowed is produced in partnership with the Open University.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

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BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Blackface - Minstrelsy

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Blackface and minstrelsy - Laurie Taylor explores a troubled history. BLACKFACE & MINSTRELSY - At its most basic level, 'blackface' is the application of any prosthetic to imitate the complexion of another race. In theory, it's a performance available to all, yet 'whiteface' is relatively unknown.

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Collections Statement

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Four Early 20th Century Piano Suites by Black Composers

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Four Early 20th Century Piano Suites by Black Composers

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New in RCS library! Registered readers can Click and Collect this score.

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Material type: Series: Publisher: New York, NY : Milwaukee, WI : Subject(s): Genre/Form: Score Schirmer's library of musical classics: G. Schirmer ; distributed by Hal Leonard, c1997 Description: Piano score (81 p.) 30 cm. ISBN: 0793576040; 9780793576043. Other title: Four early twentieth century piano suites by black composers. Contained works: Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel, 1875-1912 Three-fours | Burleigh, H. T., 1866-1949 | Dett, R. Nathaniel, 1882-1943 | Matthews, Artie, 1888-1958. Suites (Piano ) | Piano music (Ragtime) Music by African-American composers. | Scores.

Other standard identifier: 073999829600

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Material type: Series: Publisher: New York, NY : Milwaukee, WI : Subject(s): Genre/Form: Score Schirmer's library of musical classics: G. Schirmer ; distributed by Hal Leonard, c1997 Description: Piano score (81 p.) 30 cm. ISBN: 0793576040; 9780793576043. Other title: Four early twentieth century piano suites by black composers.

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Making his peace with South Africa: double bassist Leon Bosch

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s a person of colour growing up in South Africa in the 1970s, double bass player Leon Bosch was scarred physically and mentally by the country's apartheid regime. "They abused me, imprisoned me, ill-treated me, and I didn't want to have any contact with them," he says. He sought refuge in the UK in the early 80s, and built a successful career here. Now, though, he has made his peace with South Africa, and his latest disc underlines that spirit of reconciliation.

Working with Nigerian-Romanian pianist Rebeca Omordia, Bosch has recorded a set of pieces for bass and piano that he commissioned from South African composers in a one-man attempt to create a bass repertoire in the country of his birth. " The idea of the project is not just to record the music," he explains, "but to commission as much music as possible by good South African composers so that future generations will have music to play." Over the past four years he has commissioned almost 40 pieces, and nine of them have made it on to the new disc: "The pieces," he says, "that spoke most loudly to me."

Bosch was born in a township near Cape Town in 1961. The apartheid system classified him as "Cape coloured", and he says township life was impoverished, dehumanising and dangerous. Both his parents were teachers, but his father was banned for political activism and had to work as a labourer for the local council instead. "Our house was raided regularly by Special Branch," he says. "We lived a life of terror."

Leon Bosch at Wigmore Hall. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Despite the turmoil, his parents ensured he received an excellent all-round education, which included music, with lessons starting at the age of five. "My father's generation all did this for their kids," says Bosch. "He bought an upright piano, a hi-fi and the contents of a record library that was going out of business." Evenings were devoted to listening to symphonies.

When you've been through this level of trauma, working insanely hard is the only way to neutralise the pain

Bosch was himself politically active at school, and in 1976 he helped to organise a march intending to go to the parliament building in Cape Town. The police attacked the protesters and mayhem ensued. Bosch escaped but soon after was picked up by the police and identified as one of the ringleaders. Along with nine other activists, he was beaten, tortured, subjected to psychological attacks - the police made threats against other members of his family - and detained for a month. He was later tried for sedition but acquitted.

"Everyone was left scarred by the experience," he says. "Everything about me is shaped by it. The workaholic thing. I realise now, looking back, that when you've been through this level of trauma, working insanely hard is the only way to neutralise the pain." He later underwent therapy to come to terms with the way he had been treated.

Bosch applied to study law at the University of Cape Town, but was rejected because of his history of activism, so applied almost as a joke to study music instead. He was accepted and started studying cello, switching to the bass in his second year at the suggestion of one of his teachers. "I had a lot of catching up to do," he says. "All the kids that came to study music had had specialist educations and had been to wonderful schools. I realised I had a choice: I could give up or I could fight. I decided to fight, and I started practising for eight hours a day. They sniggered at me when I first started playing in performance classes, but they weren't sniggering two years later."

He left South Africa in 1982 and, with financial support from music aficionados in Cape Town, came to the UK to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He was soon building a career in the UK, fought off the Home Office's attempts to deport him in 1985 as an illegal immigrant, and rose to be principal double bass of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, a position he held for almost 20 years.

Bosch, who is 59, retired from the orchestra in 2014. "I realised one could become institutionalised," he says. "The Academy was a great orchestra, but I thought I needed to step away to find out what would happen without me being attached to an organisation. Could I have a musical identity or a personal identity?" The answer, judging by his solo work, recordings, conducting with his own ensemble I Musicanti and teaching, seems to be yes.

He says being a black classical musician in the UK has never been easy. "I met hostility and racism. I was told to go back where I came from and was racially abused by the police in Yorkshire when I was attending a music festival. People called me 'the little boy from the colonies', and I remember one agency that was only willing to market me as 'the black bassist'. That was anathema to me."

Bosch welcomes the work of Chineke!, the UK-based orchestra made up primarily of BAME musicians, but says the fact it is necessary is an "indictment" of the lack of diversity in British classical music and the persistent racism within society. He admires what the Kanneh-Mason family have achieved, but wonders whether they will be allowed to build durable careers. "There have always been young people of colour who were brilliant musicians," he says, "but there is also always a danger they will be dumped further down the line. What I wish for the Kanneh-Mason family is that they have careers that last decades, and not just for as long as they are in the limelight."

The South African Double Bass is released by Meridian Records.

This article was amended on 13 October 2020 to make clear that Bosch studied at the University of Cape Town.

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'We lived a life of terror': bassist Leon Bosch on making his peace with South Africa

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s a person of colour growing up in South Africa in the 1970s, double bass player Leon Bosch was scarred physically and mentally by the country's apartheid regime. "They abused me, imprisoned me, ill-treated me, and I didn't want to have any contact with them," he says.

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So You Want to Sing Music by Women: a Guide for Performers

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So You Want to Sing Music by Women: a Guide for Performers

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Useful new book in stock!

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The Prismatic Arts Festival is a unique cultural event based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Since 2008, this artist-centred, artist-led festival has brought innovative work by Canada’s leading Indigenous artists and artists of colour to the stage.

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Prismatic Arts Festival is a unique cultural event based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Since 2008, this artist-centred, artist-led festival has brought innovative work by Canada's leading Indigenous artists and artists of colour to the stage.

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Prismatic Arts Festival is a unique cultural event based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Since 2008, this artist-centred, artist-led festival has brought innovative work by Canada's leading Indigenous artists and artists of colour to the stage.