Scala Radio and Donne Highlight 10 Women Composers in March

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**. Connect with the charitable foundation** @donne_uk to support more #womeninmusic. Visit https://donne-uk.org/ to find out more.

Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929)

An activist in the Swedish women’s movement, she was one of the first female organists to be officially appointed in Scandinavia. She began work in Stockholm in 1861 and became the organist at Gothenburg Cathedral in 1867. For her services, she was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Andrée’s two organ symphonies are still performed today. Her other compositions included the opera Fritiofs saga, several works for orchestra including two symphonies and several works for the piano.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Julie Cooper (b. 1964)

Julie Cooper is an award-winning Welsh composer whose music is broadcast extensively on Film, Television and all visual media worldwide. She has scored multiple cinematic orchestral and chamber albums featured on television drama, wildlife documentaries, film and advertising.

Known for her evocative, eclectic scores and versatility as an orchestrator, she has created soundtracks for numerous theatre and BBC Radio Drama productions.

Her latest album will be released by Signum Classics in 2021, featuring Grace Davidson, Elena Urioste and Tom Poster, Nicholas McCarthy and conducted by Jessica Cottis.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)

Performance Today's 2020 Classical Woman of the Year, and described as one of the "Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music" by critic Anne Midgette of the Washington Post, Valerie Coleman is among the world's most played composers living today. Whether it be live or via radio, her compositions are easily recognizable for their inspired style and can be throughout venues, institutions and competitions globally.

With works that range from flute sonatas that recount the stories of trafficked humans during Middle Passage and orchestral and chamber works based on nomadic Roma tribes, to scherzos about moonshine in the Mississippi Delta region and motifs based from Morse Code, her body of works have been highly regarded as a deeply relevant contribution to modern music.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Catarina Domenici (b. 1965)

Brazilian pianist and composer Catarina Domenici has a dynamic career as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher and researcher. A champion of Brazilian contemporary music, Domenici has commissioned, premiered and recorded several works for piano solo and chamber ensembles.

Domenici has performed with several orchestras in Brazil and has recorded live broadcasts for public radio and television in Brazil and the U.S. She is a frequent guest at contemporary music festivals in her native country and abroad and she is a Professor at the Federal University of Porto Alegre (Brazil).

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Carmen Guzmán (1925-2012)

Carmen Guzmán was born in Mendonza, Argentine in 1925. She was a singer, songwriter, composer and high-level guitarist. Daughter of musicians and singers, she began her music studies at age 7 and appeared at concerts of classical music when she was an eight-year-old girl. By age 14 she graduated as a guitar teacher.

She composed more than 300 songs and more than thirty works of the classical genre for solo guitar, edited by Editorial Lagos and by Editorial Henry Lemoine in Paris, France, which today are the subject of study among teachers of the instrument and were included in guitar chairs at universities in the United States.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Helene Liebmann (1795-1869)

Hélène Liebmann née Riese (16 December 1795 – 2 December 1869) was a German pianist and composer. She was born in Berlin and studied music with Franz Lauska and Ferdinand Ries. A child prodigy, she made her debut before age 13 and published her Piano Sonata when she was 15. She married around 1814 and may have moved with her husband to Vienna and then London. She was present at a Clara Wieck (Schumann) concert in 1835.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Henriette Renié (1875-1956)

Henriette Renié was a French harpist and composer who is known for her many original compositions and transcriptions, as well as codifying a method for harp that is still used today. She was a musical prodigy who excelled in harp performance from a young age, advancing through her training rapidly and receiving several prestigious awards in her youth.

Henriette was an exceptional instructor and contributed to the success of many students. She gained prominence as a woman in an era where fame was socially unacceptable for women. Her devotion to her religion, her family, her students, and her music has continued to influence and inspire musicians for decades.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953)

Ruth Crawford Seeger is widely recognised both as pivotal figure in American modernist music as well as a leading ethnomusicologist and preservation of American folk music.

In 1936, Ruth and her husband moved to Washington, D.C., to collect and transcribe field recordings for the American folk-song archive at the Library of Congress. The Seegers also transcribed Our Singing Country and Folk Song USA by John and Alan Lomax. In 1948, Crawford Seeger published her own innovative book, American Folk Songs for Children, which was designed for use in the elementary grades. Crawford Seeger returned to composition in 1952 with her Suite for Wind Quintet. By the time the composition was completed, Crawford Seeger learned she had cancer. She died in 1953.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Penelope Thwaites (b. 1944)

Composer and pianist Penelope Thwaites was born in Chester, UK of Australian parents and grew up in Melbourne, Australia.

Penelope’s recordings cover a wide range of composers, but it is as a pioneering exponent of the music of Percy Grainger, as well as for her editorship of The New Percy Grainger Companion, that she is most particularly known and admired. In January 2019, ABC Classics included her as one of Australia’s best classical performers, describing her playing as “simply exquisite”. BBC Music Magazine commented “passion undimmed….the playing’s flair and precision is unchanged”.

Penelope has written innumerable songs, four musicals, a ballet, piano and chamber music. Her musical Ride! Ride! (with Alan Thornhill) about the 18th-century revolutionary John Wesley, played in London’s West End in 1976, following a national UK tour of 12 cities. It has had 42 productions worldwide since then.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here

Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova (1743-1810)

Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova was the third daughter of Count Roman Vorontsov, a member of the Senate, and was distinguished for her intellectual gifts.

She was the closest female friend of Empress Catherine the Great and a major figure of the Russian Enlightenment.

She was part of a coup d'etat that placed Catherine on the throne. Vorontsova-Dashkova was the first woman in the world to head a national academy of sciences and helped found the Russian Academy. Not only was she the head of these academies, Vorontsova-Dashkova was also one of the first women in Europe to hold a government office. She published prolifically, in music and literature with original and translated works on many subjects.

Biography sourced from Donne. Read more here