Music Meets Drama

#BringingBackBranscombe  

  Ludwig van Beethoven, Jean Sibelius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, JS Bach, Frederic Chopin, Anton Bruckner, Robert Schumann, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Luigi Boccherini, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Hector Berlioz, and Richard Wagner.  What do all of these composers have in common?  First, they are all men and second, they have statues of their likeness in public squares across Europe and some in the United States.    Chris Wiley, of London, England, recently posted on Facebook that a statue of composer/suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) had been unveiled in her home town of Woking, England.   The unveiling, appropriately, was held on International Women’s Day, March 8 th .     Dame Ethel Smyth’s legacy as a composer and suffragette is exemplary for those of us who have come after her.   She studied at the Leipzig Conservatory.   She   met Clara Schumann and J ohannes Brahms.   She composed instrumental...

Women Composers………………. What a pleasure it was in early September of this year to read that young Jessy McCabe, a student at the private Twyford Church of England High School in London, England, stood up to exam boards for the A level music tests.  Among the 63 composers listed on the exam, not one of them was a woman nor were women composers listed on the syllabus for course work.  In Miss McCabe’s estimation, something had to be done and it was her responsibility to correct the wrong done to women composers.  She began a journey to change the way advanced music courses were taught.  She received an apology from the exam board and an assurance that women composers would be included in her music classes.  This young lady had taken a course entitled, “Fearless Futures” which raised the subject of gender inequality.  Her eyes were opened to the role of sexism in all facets of our everyday life.  With her determination to see an end to this so...