APPLICATIONS HAVE NOW CLOSED FOR OUR SWAP'RA RETREAT 2025
HOWEVER, WE ARE STILL FUNDRAISING SO PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING HERE
REDISCOVERING FEMALE COMPOSERS OF THE PAST WITH VOICES OF THE FUTURE
6-13 MARCH 2021
ABOUT THE PROJECT
One of our most fascinating projects to date, 'Forgotten Voices' is an ongoing research and performance project with the goal of rediscovering and celebrating women composers of the past to ensure they have much more of a 'voice' than they have had compared to their male counterparts in modern programming. The original festival has led to an ongoing collaboration with Oxford Lieder.
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.
The festival launched at 4pm on 6 March with a live-streamed, hour-long concert from Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama celebrating Welsh composers past and present. Over the course of the following week we released more videos – recorded in lockdown – every day, with the intention of flooding social media with the wealth of talent from female composers.
The festival featured music by composers including Maud Cuney-Hare, Elaine Hughes-Jones, and Laura Netzel along with some unpublished songs by Margaret Bonds, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, and Rebecca Clarke. This was the first chapter in an ambitious new project to build a comprehensive database to facilitate and encourage more programming – and awareness - of works by female composers.
Our co-founder Kitty says, ‘Although there are many websites which catalogue the names and dates of female composers, they all lack recordings. Artists looking to expand their repertoire of women’s music need to hear a snapshot of a composer’s music to get a flavour of her sound-world in order to decide if they are attracted to her style and interested in exploring more. If recordings of a composer’s music were free and easily accessible, I know I personally would be far more likely to be more adventurous in my programming.’
We’re delighted to be working with Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and Trinity Laban as well as singers from the National Opera Studio.
A full list of featured composers:
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
With enormous thanks to:
All the student singers, young artists and pianists who have volunteered their time and talent to this project
Everyone who has helped us to put the project together, including:
Alexa Carey - RAM
Angela Livingstone - RWCMD
Armin Zanner - GSMD
Audrey Hyland - RCM
Beth Lynch - National Opera Studio
Betty Roe - Composer
Catherine Carby - SWAP’ra
Christopher Johnson - Rebecca Clarke Estate
Christopher Painter - Oriana Publications Limited / Cwmni Cyhoeddi Oriana
Claire Liddell - Composer
Claire Tomalin
David Good - Goodmusic Publishing (Claire Liddell song)
Diana Ambache - Repertoire consultancy
Dominique Le Gendre - Repertoire consultancy
Dr Louise Toppin - Videmus Inc.
Elaine Hugh-Jones - Composer
For Love Let Wind Cry...How I Adore Thee by Undine Smith Moore appears courtesy of Round Hill Carlin
Hera
Iain Burnside - Repertoire consultancy
Jean-Marc Reyno - language consultancy
Jennifer Hamilton - Trinity Laban
John Ramster - GSMD
Lynn Dawson - RNCM
Martha Hartman - GSMD
Natasha Loges - RCM
Nigel Foster - Repertoire consultancy
PRS for Music
Penny King - RWCMD
Phillip Sunderland - RAM
Robert good - Bibliofox
Simone Jonetsu Ibbett-Brown - Hera
Siân Rogers - Siren
Toria Banks - Hera
William Coleman - Caradoc press