Scala Radio and Donne Highlight 10 Women Composers in April
Discover which 10 women composers Scala Radio will highlight on the station in April
Scala Radio and Donne, Women in Music are working in partnership to highlight women composers who have never been played on the station before, with Scala Radio selecting 10 pieces to premiere each month.
Initially a three-month partnership, the campaign aims to introduce a wider audience to these women composers and ensure that their work can be enjoyed by all.
Discover more about Donne, Women in Music
Clarice Assad (b. 1978)
A prolific Grammy nominated composer with over 70 works to her credit, Clarice Assad’s numerous commissions include works for Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo, Chicago Sinfonietta, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Youth Orchestra, General Electric, Sybarite5, Metropolis ensemble, the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Queen Reef Music Festival and the La Jolla Music Festival, to name a few. Her work Danças Nativas was nominated for a Latin Grammy for best contemporary composition in 2009. Her compositions have been recorded by some of the most prominent names in the classical music, including percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and oboist Liang Wang.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Laura Valborg Aulin (1860–1928)
Valborg Aulin had a significant career as a composer in her hometown of Stockholm, which was interrupted in 1903 when she moved to Örebro to work as a music teacher. During her active years as a composer, she had numerous works published and performed. With a good education and heavily influenced by her musical upbringing, she wrote music that was much appreciated during her lifetime: mostly works for home and the salon, which, although influenced by French music, still belongs within the Scandinavian tradition. Her works show harmonic refinement and a powerful temperament, while her tone poems for piano are written in a more lyrical style.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Emily Bear (b.2001)
Composer, Pianist, Singer-Songrwiter Emily Bear breaks all the rules. The 18-year-old composer and piano virtuoso creates emotionally charged, ear-worm catchy music that is irreverent of genres yet combines them at the same time. A rather unbelievable journey from five-year-old piano prodigy on Ellen to in-demand global performer and composer, ushered her to this tipping point in 2019.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Annabel Bennett
Annabel Bennett, also known as Arthur Parker, is a pianist and composer from Padstow. Daughter of legendary arranger, producer and multi instrumentalist Tom Parker from Apollo 100, she grew up around the music industry as he worked with the likes of David Bowie, John Lee Hooker and Gerry Rafferty. After her father’s death, she took to the piano to fulfil her musical ambitions and freed a creative spirit that had never come out while he was alive. Since then, she has produced more than 350 original pieces.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Anna Bon (Di Venezia) (1739–1767)
Many outstanding women scientists, scholars, artists, musicians and composers were found in Italy in the eighteenth century. One such female composer was Anna Bon from Venice. She was born in 1738 to a couple that both worked in opera productions. Her mother was a singer and her father worked as a librettist and set designer. At the age of four her parents enrolled her in the Ospedale Della Pietà in Venice as a tuition-paying pupil (figlia de spesi). Most of the children at the Ospedale were orphans but were exceptionally well trained in music. Francesco Gasparini was the continuo teacher at the Pietà for some time, Onofrio Penati taught woodwinds and for thirty-four years Antonio Vivaldi taught violin and viola in addition to composing for the girls.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
María Luisa Escobar (1898–1985)
María Luisa Escobar, also known as Maritza Graxirena was a Venezuelan musicologist, pianist, composer. In addition to her work as a composer of numerous boleros and songs, she also worked in the defence of author's rights and was also the founder of the Caracas Athenaeum in 1931. A cultural institution centred on the arts, the Caracas Athenaeum has always been led by women.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Jesi Nelson
Jesi Nelson is a Korean born, Wisconsin raised, Los Angeles based composer for film & media. She is an alumna of the highly competitive Sundance Film Music & Sound Design Lab (2017) held at Skywalker Ranch, and was the recipient of the Sundance Institute and Time Warner Foundation grant, where 11 diverse independent artists were chosen from different Sundance labs, in its continued efforts to discover and support independent artists from diverse backgrounds. She is also an alumna of the prestigious ASCAP Composers Workshop with Richard Bellis (2018).
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Alexandra Stréliski (b. 1985)
Alexandra Stréliski is a Montreal-based pianist who creates minimalist and cinematic music. As Billboard calls her “one of the foremost new stars in modern classical”, Noisey describes her music as “a contrast of depth and fragility that uncannily resembles the human condition itself.”
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Mari Esabel Valverde (b.1987)
Award-winning composer and singer Mari Esabel Valverde has been commissioned by the American Choral Directors Association, Texas Music Educators Association, Seattle Men’s and Women’s Choruses, and Boston Choral Ensemble among others and has appeared with Dallas Chamber Choir, Vox Humana, and EXIGENCE (Detroit). She was a featured composer at the 2016 Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses Festival, where her Our Phoenix was premiered by six collective ensembles from the United States and Canada. Her works are published by earthsongs and Walton Music and self-published.
Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here
Judit Varga (b.1979)
Hungarian-born Judit Varga lives in Vienna where she works as a pianist and composer. Besides concert music, she is interested in setting short features, theatre performances to music as well as writing for multimedia events and festivals. Her compositions have been played in such prestigious festivals and concert halls as Wien Modern, the Hungarian State Opera House, Cité de la musique Paris, Juilliard School of Music in New York, Budapest Autumn Festival, Mini Festival, Konzerthaus and Musikverein Wien, Muffathalle München, Warsaw Autumn.
Biography sourced from Donne.