News and music to start your week!Ethel Smyth

Happy birthday to Dame Ethel Smyth! (April 22) Read reflections about the great composer, pictured right, by WPA Board Member Robyn Bramhall.

There’s a wonderful new newsletter, “Fantastic Women Composers and Where To Find Them”  (we are told the title is a Harry Potter reference 🙂 ).  Created by Swedish musician Magdalena Fronczak (pictured), learn more about why she was compelled to begin the project (which she started on Instagram in 2014) at Mid-Day.com.

We missed the story last month – but a Colorado University student, who herself is a composer, is working toward raising attention to the lack of diversity and moving towards a more inclusive concert repertoire.  Read more about Dianna Link’s research here.

And the latest on the list of periodicals that are starting to pay attention to the lack of diversity, the Calgary Journal explores the question “Where are the women?” in the Canadian music scene. The wonderful composer Tawnie Olson is interviewed.

Conductor Anna Edwards continues with her wonderful listening lists — this time in a challenge to DARE to listen – (Diverse – Accessible – Recognizable – Equitable) — with composers from the mid-19th c to the present.

The Orchestra of St. Luke’s (NYC) was supposed to have been celebrating the composer Eleanor Alberga but because of the pandemic, they are (creatively) doing as much as possible of that online — which makes it accessible to those of us in far-flung locales.  Just enjoying her String Quartet No. 1: Détaché et martellato e zehr lebhaft und swing it man

What did we miss?  What are you reading, or listening to, right now?  Leave a comment or send us an email and let us know!  [email protected]