Meet the composers behind the historical strand of the Venus Unwrapped programme, from Renaissance nuns to Baroque aristocrats, from 19th-century pioneers to talents whose music was all but obliterated by historical cataclysm, discouragement and early death.
Despite Vitēzlava Kaprálová’s lamentably short life nonetheless produced a substantial body of skilfully crafted works reflecting (like the works of…
Rebecca Clarke embarked on composition lessons at the Royal College of Music with Stanford, who suggested she take up the…
A protégée of the Sun King – to whom she dedicated her first book of Pièces de clavecin (1687) –…
The illegitimate daughter of influential poet Giulio Strozzi, and herself a single mother of four, Barbara Strozzi could easily have…
Champion of CPE Bach, composition pupil of Kirnberger, and voracious collector of musical scores, Anna Amalia probably took her first…
That Francesca Caccini was destined to be the first woman to compose an opera is hardly surprising. Born in Florence…
Like Hildegard of Bingen, ‘Suor Leonora’ was an abbess of noble birth, (her mother was Lucrezia Borgia, her father Alfonso…
A series celebrating one of today’s most distinctive musical voices, tracing the artistic friendships and influences that continue to inspire…
Maverick composer Graham Fitkin has just set off on a pan-European forest-focused 2500-mile cycle tour from Romania back to the…
Rewriting the Rules: How RNS Moves is Revolutionizing Classical Music