Female Composers Concert Information

Hildegard Von Bingham (1098-1179)

Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard was a

German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian
mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is one of the best-known composers of
sacred monophony, as well as the most-recorded in modern history.She has
been considered by many in Europe to be the founder of scientifi c natural
history in Germany.

There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer
from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to
have written both the music and the words.

Today we think of Hildegard as one of the first identifiable composers in

the history of Western music (most medieval composers were “Anon”).
But there were no mentions of her music in any reference book before
1979 and she barely warranted an entry in the 1990 edition of The New
Grove Dictionary of Music.

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)

Rebecca Clarke (27 August 1886 – 13 October 1979) was an English

classical composer and violist best known for her chamber music featuring
the viola. She settled permanently in New York City and married composer
and pianist James Friskin in 1944. Clarke died at her home in New York at the
age of 93.
Although Clarke's output was not large, her work was recognised for its
compositional skill and artistic power. Some of her works have yet to be
published (and many were only recently published); those that were
published in her lifetime were largely forgotten after she stopped composing.
Scholarship and interest in her compositions revived in 1976. The Rebecca
Clarke Society was established in 2000 to promote the study and
performance of her music.
Clarke composed no large scale works such as symphonies. Her total output
of compositions comprises 52 songs, 11 choral works, 21 chamber pieces,
the Piano Trio, and the Viola Sonata.[5] Her work was all but forgotten for a
long period of time, but interest in it was revived in 1976 following a radio
broadcast in celebration of her ninetieth birthday. Over half of Clarke's
compositions remain unpublished and in the personal possession of her
heirs, along with most of her writings.[11] However, in the early 2000s more of
her works were printed and recorded.

However, her later output was sporadic.[1] She suffered from dysthymia, a

chronic form of depression;[11] the lack of encouragement—sometimes
outright discouragement—she received for her work also made her reluctant
to compose.[3] Clarke did not consider herself able to balance her personal life
and the demands of composition: "I can't do it unless it's the first thing I think
of every morning when I wake and the last thing I think of every night before I
go to sleep." After her marriage, she stopped composing, despite the
encouragement of her husband, although she continued working on
arrangements until shortly before her death. She also stopped performing.

Fanny Hensel or as some may know her as Fanny Mendelssohn

(1805-1847).

Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847),[1] later Fanny

[Cäcilie] Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel,
was a German composer and pianist. She composed over 460 pieces of
music. Her compositions include a piano trio and several books of solo piano
pieces and songs. A number of her songs were originally published under her
brother, Felix Mendelssohn's, name in his opus 8 and 9 collections. Her piano
works are often in the manner of songs, and many carry the name Lieder für
das Pianoforte (Songs for the piano, a parallel to Felix's Songs without
Words).

However, Fanny was limited by prevailing attitudes of the time toward women,
attitudes apparently shared by her father, who was tolerant, rather than
supportive, of her activities as a composer. Her father wrote to her in 1820
"Music will perhaps become his [i.e. Felix's] profession, while for you it can
and must be only an ornament".[7] Although Felix was privately broadly
supportive of her as a composer and a performer, he was cautious
(professedly for family reasons) of her publishing her works under her own
name. He wrote:
From my knowledge of Fanny I should say that she has neither inclination nor
vocation for authorship. She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this.
She regulates her house, and neither thinks of the public nor of the musical
world, nor even of music at all, until her first duties are fulfilled. Publishing
would only disturb her in these, and I cannot say that I approve of it.[8]
In 1842 this resulted in an embarrassing moment when Queen Victoria,
receiving Felix at Buckingham Palace, expressed her intention of singing the
composer her favourite of his songs, "Italien" (to words by Franz Grillparzer),
which Mendelssohn confessed was by Fanny.

Debbie Wiseman

Debbie Wiseman, OBE (born 10 May 1963) is a British composer for fi lm

and television, known also as a conductor and a radio and television
presenter.

One of the UK’s most successful female music ambassadors, Debbie is in

demand as a composer and conductor.

Throughout the past 20 years, there are probably few people in the UK who
have not heard a theme from one of Debbie’s films or television productions.
Whether it is watching Stephen Fry bring to life Oscar Wilde for the big screen,
hearing the latest political commentary on a Sunday morning with Andrew
Marr, or revelling in the Tudor world of Thomas Cromwell in “Wolf Hall”,
Wiseman has gifted us iconic themes of beauty and passion, love and laughter.

Her credits, over 200 of them, for the big and small screen, include WOLF HALL, EDIE, THE WHALE,

FLOOD, WARRIORS, JUDGE JOHN DEED, WILDE, HAUNTED, OTHELLO, LAND GIRLS, JOANNA

LUMLEY’S NILE, TOM & VIV, JEKYLL, THE INSPECTOR LYNLEY MYSTERIES, THE PASSION,

THE GUILTY, BEFORE YOU GO, ARSENE LUPIN, HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT, TOM’S MIDNIGHT

GARDEN, LOST CHRISTMAS, STEPHEN FRY IN AMERICA, WPC 56, THE PROMISE, A POET IN

NEW YORK, THE ANDREW MARR SHOW, FATHER BROWN, THE CORONER, SHAKESPEARE

AND HATHAWAY and DICKENSIAN.

Debbie is a regular presence on Radio 3 and 4. She presented a Radio 4

programme on the composer Joseph Horovitz, and in 2013 Debbie presented
Scoring Father Brown for Radio 4, which followed her process of composing
the score for the BBC TV series. In October 2014 Debbie was Kirsty Young’s
guest on Desert Island Discs, and in March 2015 Debbie presented Same Tune,
Different Song on Radio 4, as well as a two-hour special of her favourite music
on Radio 3’s Saturday Classics.

Debbie was one of 11 composers chosen to compose music for the Queen’s
Diamond Jubilee Pageant on June 3rd 2012 when she conducted her movement
of “New Water Music” on The Georgian barge. She was commissioned to
compose the Overture and Finale music for the Queen’s 90th Birthday
Celebration in May 2016.

The Glorious Garden is a suite of compositions inspired by poems written by renowned

gardener Alan Titchmarsh. Titchmarsh - the man whose name is synonymous with the
English country garden - wrote a collection of beautiful and entertaining poems about his
favourite plants and flowers, including Cedar of Lebanon, Snowdop and Myrtle, and
composer Debbie Wiseman has taken these words and composed the perfect musical
description for orchestra and soloists to perform, whatever the weather!

Thea Musgrave (B. 1928)

In response to a question presented by Tom Service for the BBC about

Musgrave's view of being a ‘woman composer’ she replied, "Yes I am a
woman, and I am a composer. But rarely at the same time".[9] She admits that
pursuing music can be a difficult career. When asked by the BBC to offer
advice to young composers, she replied, "Don’t do it, unless you have to. And
if you do, enjoy every minute of it.

Her compositions were first performed under the auspices of the British Broadcasting Corporation
and at the Edinburgh International Festival. As a result her works have been widely performed in
Britain, Europe and the USA, and at the major music festivals, such as Edinburgh, Warsaw Autumn,
Florence Maggio Musicale, Venice Biennale, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham and Zagreb; on most of the
European and American broadcasting stations; and on many regular symphony concert series.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 27 May 1928, she studied first at the University of Edinburgh and
later at the Conservatoire in Paris, where she spent four years as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger, before
establishing herself back in London as a prominent member of British musical life. In 1970 she
became Guest Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which anchored her
increasing involvement with the musical life of the United States.
Programme note :

The Scottish Dance Suite is based on traditional Scottish folk songs and dances, though
several less well-known tunes are used. For instance in the second of the four
movements, one can hear the older tune of The bonnie Earl of Moray, and in the first
movement, the tune is the one to which Burns wrote his famous poem Robin shure in
hairst. In the last movement, two well-known tunes alternate, but at the end several of the
tunes used in the work all combine together to make an exciting climax.

The Scottish Dance Suite was written in 1959 and first performed on the 17th August 1961
by the BBC SSO and conducted by James Lockhart. The first dance is dedicated to Iain
Hamilton.