The Full Score
Peace Prize winner will take centre stage as station marks International Women’s Day
Radio 3 celebrates International Women’s Day; Rattle announces LSO plans; Chopin shot again
Radio 3 has revealed how it plans to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March with a range of programmes devoted to the work of female composers. As well as championing the music of women composers of the past, the station will also be celebrating today’s leading talent, not least by broadcasting the premieres of three new choral works.
Perhaps the most eye-catching of those premieres will be Speak Out by
Kate Whitley, which sets words from a speech given to the UN in July 2013 by Nobel Peace Prizewinner Malala Yousafzai. In 2012, Yousafzai, then 15, hit the headlines when she was shot by the Taliban for writing a blog in which she campaigned for the rights of all girls to receive education. Airlifted from Pakistan, she was treated in the UK, where she continued her campaign.
‘As the speech is a call to raise our voices,’ she says, ‘it makes me very happy that it will be sung by a large choir, that so many voices will rise to share the message of education for all.’ Conducted by Xian Zhang, Speak Out will be performed by the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales at Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff and broadcast at 9.30pm. Works by Sasha Johnson Manning and Dobrinka Tabakova will also be premiered on the day, both performed by the girl choristers of Truro Cathedral Choir, themselves making their first appearance on Radio 3.
Female composers will not just be the subjects of Radio 3’s International Women’s Day programmes, however. They will be curating them too, as six composers – Alissa Firsova, Sally Beamish, Tansy Davies, Errollyn Wallen, Annette Peacock and Kerry Andrew – have been invited as guest editors. In addition, on the previous Saturday (4 March) Andrew Mcgregor will be exploring the music of Ethel Smyth in
Record Review and Tom Service will be investigating a manuscript by Fanny Mendelssohn in Music Matters; and, throughout the week, Composer of the
Week will be looking at music by women working in 16th-century Ferrara.