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| Nadia and Lili Boulenger, photographed in 1913. |
Nigel Foster’s London Track Competition returns subsequent month for a season of 10 live shows exploring the work of ladies composers. As ever, the live shows are at Hinde Avenue Methodist Church and issues kick off on 17 October with Nigel Foster being joined by mezzo-soprano Katie Bray and tenor Man Slicing for songs and music cycles by Nadia and Lili Boulanger.
Then soprano Francesca Chiejina and mezzo-soprano Lea Shaw discover African American ladies composers and the wrestle for Civil Rights with music by Florence Value, Brittney Elizabeth Boykin, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Margaret Bonds, Jacqueline Hairston, Betty Jackson King and Nkeiru Okoye, and by the Native American composer Martha Redbone. Music and phrases from Ethel Smyth and the Suffragettes are the topic of soprano Ella Taylor and mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean’s recital,
Subsequent recitals look at the contribution made by ladies immigrants and refugees to the UK, have fun of the life and loves of the American poet Sara Teasdale, and provides us a style of the vibrancy and pleasure of Latin America. Then there are songs from movies and exhibits written by ladies, together with Marguerite Monnot, Mary Rodgers, Amanda McBroom, Kristen Anderson, Dorothy Fields, Betty Comden, Carolyn Leigh, Marilyn Bergmann, Diane Warren, Barbra Streisand and Dolly Parton.
The poet Christina Rosetti is the main focus for soprano Susan Bullock’s recital with Janine Roebuck as speaker. A efficiency of all 27 songs Debussy wrote for Marie-Blanche Vasnier, with whom he loved a 7-year-long affair from the age of 18, might be introduced by the winners of the 2024 London Track Competition Schubert Track Prize. Kitty Whately then joins Nigel Foster for Cross-Channel Currents, an summary of songs written in England and in France with phrases or music by ladies.
Full particulars from the London Track Competition web site.
