BBC Radio 3 has launched a new research project with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find and record lost compositions by female composers.
The project, which is also being led by BBC Wales and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, is part of the station’s ongoing commitment to supporting diversity within classical music.
There will be a seminar in London on 25 January to allow academics studying in this area the chance to bring little-known music out into the open.
BBC Radio 3 will select the best works and commit to performing it in concerts, recording new repertoire and using the daily station schedule to bring it to the public.
The initiative follows two female composer focusses for International Women’s Day and a recent industry-wide conference on Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) diversity in composition.
BBC Radio 3’s Women’s Day programming editor Edwina Wolstencroft said: ‘Through researching for both International Women’s Day and Composer of the Week, a regular daily strand which does a comprehensive exploration of composers across five hours in a week, we uncovered many rarely heard recorded works.
‘However, we also discovered that there were composers it was not possible to feature because the performances or recordings to play to our listeners just didn’t exist. Research shows there are some 6000 overlooked female composers from the past and most people can only name a handful of composing women, if that.’
Alan Davey, BBC Radio 3 controller, added: ‘As a patron of the arts and a broadcaster, promoter, commissioner of live works and partner of the very fine BBC orchestras and choirs, BBC Radio 3 is uniquely placed to make a difference to this issue and to the landscape of classical music through recovering high quality works that have been unfairly forgotten through history.
‘We hope to make this an ongoing commitment, so that we will be able to continue to connect the public with a significant body of work which has been neglected for many years, thereby rightly expanding the canon of classical music forever.’
The project, which is also being led by BBC Wales and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, is part of the station’s ongoing commitment to supporting diversity within classical music.
There will be a seminar in London on 25 January to allow academics studying in this area the chance to bring little-known music out into the open.
BBC Radio 3 will select the best works and commit to performing it in concerts, recording new repertoire and using the daily station schedule to bring it to the public.
The initiative follows two female composer focusses for International Women’s Day and a recent industry-wide conference on Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) diversity in composition.
BBC Radio 3’s Women’s Day programming editor Edwina Wolstencroft said: ‘Through researching for both International Women’s Day and Composer of the Week, a regular daily strand which does a comprehensive exploration of composers across five hours in a week, we uncovered many rarely heard recorded works.
‘However, we also discovered that there were composers it was not possible to feature because the performances or recordings to play to our listeners just didn’t exist. Research shows there are some 6000 overlooked female composers from the past and most people can only name a handful of composing women, if that.’
Alan Davey, BBC Radio 3 controller, added: ‘As a patron of the arts and a broadcaster, promoter, commissioner of live works and partner of the very fine BBC orchestras and choirs, BBC Radio 3 is uniquely placed to make a difference to this issue and to the landscape of classical music through recovering high quality works that have been unfairly forgotten through history.
‘We hope to make this an ongoing commitment, so that we will be able to continue to connect the public with a significant body of work which has been neglected for many years, thereby rightly expanding the canon of classical music forever.’
