Women composers feature in Autumn and Christmas concerts

As part of our commitment to programming more female composers the London Oriana Choir’s next concert, Journeys, on 29th October at St Peter’s Eaton Square SW1, is devoted to pilgrimages, journeys and adventures, and will include several choral works by women.

The choir will perform Finnish composer Mia Makaroff’s Butterfly, Cecilia McDowall’s A red red rose, and Freya Waley-Cohen’s haunting Attired with Stars, along with celebrated British composer Dame Ethel Smyth’s The March of the Women. Written in 1911 and dedicated to the Women's Social and Political Union, the song became a popular anthem of the women’s suffrage movement.

Journeys will include the singer Susie Hill’s arrangement of Scarborough Fair, Rachel Fuller's Just Breathe, and L’amante modesto by Italian Baroque composer Barbara Strozzi. Also a virtuoso singer, Strozzi's eight volumes of music, according to the Society of Ancient Music, make her the most extensively published composer of Italian chamber cantatas in the history of the genre, and she is said to have been the most prolific composer – man or woman – of printed secular vocal music in Venice in the mid seventeenth century.

The concert - which includes pieces by William Byrd, Orlando di Lasso and James Macmillan - will be a mesmerising mix of choral music from across the ages. Book your tickets here.

Christmas celebrations

Continuing our commissioning of new work by women our current composer-in-residence Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s next piece for five15 will premiere at the London Oriana Choir's candlelit Christmas choral celebrations at St Peters Eaton Square and St James’ Piccadilly in December. More news to follow!