Category: News

News – official commitment to playing more BAME composers on the show

Super excited to officially announce my new commitment to include more music by black and minority ethnic composers in the show every single week. This includes both men and women, composers that are not white are incredibly marginalised in the classical music industry.

People of all skin colours have been composing throughout history, there is vast amounts of incredible repertoire written by people of colour/BAME composers yet none of it is performed enough. So I’m redressing the balance, actually over the last 5 weeks I’ve programmed at least one piece by a black male composer on every show including music by Ulysses Kay, William Grant Still, George Walker, and Adolphus Hailstork but now it’s officially official.

Still a work in progress regarding specifics but from today every show will contain at least one piece by a male BAME composer/person of colour, guaranteed. And that’s in addition to my gender equality commitment and any awesome music by women of colour as well which will continue to be on the show.

In terms of women composers of African descent, apart from Florence Price who I program at least once a month, including my Fun With Florence segment, I’ve only programmed Margaret Bonds, Regina Baiocchi and Eleanor Alberga so far. I’ve programmed Chinese composer Chen Yi and Japanese composer Keiko Abe once so there’s a lot of room for development and improvement, as I say still working out the kinks, I’m looking forward to making the show better and more interesting, more diverse and inclusive.

I’ve already discovered and programmed a ton of new repertoire so I’m excited to keep it going, continue to showcase awesome marginalised music and keep programming for justice.

Schedule change

The Daffodil Perspective is moving from Sunday mornings to Friday evenings. The next show is available from Friday 9th August at 8, as always it’s available to stream online on-demand, to listen when it suits you.

This Friday sees the start of my Divine Art Recordings monthly residency, showcasing some of their amazing releases of women composers.

In the meantime, catch all my past shows on Mixcloud here.

2019 releases of women composers

Looking for new releases of women composers?

Check out this spreadsheet listing every 2019 recording featuring exclusively women composers. All with links to listen and buy!

There are so many amazing recordings out this year of contemporary women composers and historical women composers. (Although still a shamefully tiny fraction of the number recorded of male composers)

The purpose is:

  1. To provide information for anyone interested in discovering more music written by women
  2. To provide inspiration for anyone working in classical music to program a more diverse repertoire.

 

Spotted one that’s missing? Drop me a message on the Contact page and I’ll add it.

New Monthly Residency!

Excited to announce that The Daffodil Perspective is collaborating with Divine Art Recordings to bring you another monthly residency.

Every month on the album of the week section I’ll be featuring one of Divine Art Recordings fantastic albums of women composers.

It’ll be mostly contemporary music with a few historical composers as well. Including Nicola LeFanu, Galina Ustvolskaya, Helen Hobersham, Sadie Harrison and many more!

Fun starts 4th August!

https://divineartrecords.com

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Fun With Florence

One year ago today I heard the music of Florence Price for the first time and my world changed forever.

In my eyes Florence Price is simply the greatest composer of all time. It’s not just her music, which is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard, Florence Price fought against every possible prejudice and tackled every injustice. Her perseverance and stamina is astounding in addition to the wide range of mediums for which she wrote. Not only this but both she and I are mixed race women and I can’t help feel a connection.  Florence Price is an inspiration, she will always be my role model and guiding light.

To celebrate this important anniversary I’m introducing a new monthly segment on my show called Fun With Florence. On the 4th week of every month, starting this Tuesday, I’ll be playing one of her incredible pieces and talking about this phenomenal person. I’ll be exploring her life, work, accomplishments and the myriad of reasons why she inspires me and many other people around the world.

On Tuesday I’m starting with a very special recording from pianist and fellow Price champion Samantha Ege.

In the meantime the first piece of Florence Price I heard was her Symphony in. E Minor.

News for my 100 day anniversary!!!

Today is 100 days since the 1st broadcast of The Daffodil Perspective, and to celebrate I’m taking it to the next level, so much exciting news to share.

1, I’ve launched my brand new logo everywhere. I think it looks really cool!

2. Also got a brand new and improved home page. Read all about my mission here.

3. I’m pleased to announce Contemporary Corner has its first monthly residency with PARMA Recordings! On the 3rd Tuesday of every month I will be showcasing a single composer album by one of their awesome composers. This is starting on the 19th March.

4. Im also excited to announce I’m now a contributor on Women in Music Blog, a fantastic organisation started 30 years ago by composers Odaline de la Martinez, Nicola leFanu and others to support and promote women working in the arts. Fingers crossed to be a full member soon too. Next week on the show I’m very excited to feature the music of Lucy Hollingworth, a brilliant composer and by happy coincidence a trustee of Women in Music.

5. I wrote a guest blog on Dame Elizabeth Maconchy for Illuminate Women’s Music, another trailblazing organisation supporting and promoting women composers. We have a great relationship and I’ve been pleased to feature some of their live recordings every month on the show. Check out my piece on Maconchy and find out more about Illuminate here.  They will be playing music by Maconchy at the Royal College of Music on Saturday 16th February, a concert not to be missed.

6. This week Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy mentioned my blog post on their Monday Link Round up. Check it out and find out about their amazing work here. Shout out to them and all the work they do seeing music by women gets performed.

7. I’ve been playing Florence Price a lot on my show so I’ve decided to make my celebration of her official, introducing Fun With Florence! Every month I’ll be showcasing a different piece by this amazing woman along with sharing her story, what inspires me so much about her and a few lessons she can teach us.

That will be happening on the 4th Tuesday of every month and I’m starting with a very special recording from pianist Samantha Ege, a fellow champion of Price and brilliant interpreter of Price’s music.  Her album Four Women was released in November, I was very excited to feature it as my album of the week on the 27th November. Have a listen to Ege’s rendition of Price’s Sonata in E Minor from the album Four Women.

To find out more about Samantha Ege and her work check out her awesome site Music Herstories here

8. I created my first curated Spotify playlist – a basic guide to female composers throughout history starting with Hildegard von Bingen, moving through the eras to the 21st century. Just some of the many awesome women composers. Check it out.

Expect more curated playlists coming soon…

9. Lastly shout to composer Rebecca Rowe, I featured her wonderful Fantasie In Nomine in Contemporary Corner on 29th January. Pleased to get a mention on her site too, she’s got tons of great things happening, check it all out here.

10. That’s almost it, I’m planning on starting more regular blog features including updates on new releases, upcoming events and various curated playlists. Few more things in the works, will drop them as soon as I can.  Check out my Facebook page and Twitter for updates.

Here’s to a more gender balanced future!