BBC to search for works of Polish Female composer?
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
03.12.2016 21:06
The less-known works of Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz may be sought out by a new British radio project promoting women composers, according to the Polish IAR news wire.
![A bust of Grażyna Bacewicz. Photo: Paweł Cieśla Staszek Szybki Jest [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons](http://external.polskieradio.pl/files/93411b7c-635a-4d7e-bf04-4f90af3dc5d4.file "A bust of Grażyna Bacewicz. Photo: Paweł Cieśla Staszek Szybki Jest [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons")
A bust of Grażyna Bacewicz. Photo: Paweł Cieśla Staszek Szybki Jest [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
The BBC's Radio 3 network announced on Saturday its initiative to work with academics to hunt for and record the “lost” works of female composers.
The idea came about after a 2015 drive to promote women composers for International Women's Day, Edwina Wolstencroft, Editor of BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week segment, wrote on gramophone.co.uk.
At the time she realised it would be difficult to fill the five-hour “biographical programming” slot with the works of just one woman.
“Kate Kennedy from Cambridge university, who was involved in our Women’s Day programming, said there were some 6000 female composers forgotten by history,” Wolstencroft said.
“It struck me that the BBC was perfectly placed to solve this as we have the BBC Orchestras and Choirs who could record the music and Radio 3 could broadcast the recordings,” she added.
The BBC will be looking for pieces that were rarely or even never performed, parts of which may be archived around the world or gathering dust in the homes of composers' descendants.
Alan Davey, controller of Radio 3, told the British Telegraph daily that the search was for “good” music.
“It will be good stuff people will want to listen to, rather than ‘women’s music’ as it were,” he said.
Results of the search are to be presented at a conference on January 25. A workshop will then shortlist composers' whose biographical works will be recorded.
Bacewicz was a 20th century composer and violinist who gained international acclaim and won a number of awards, including First Prize at the International Composition Competition in Liege in 1951 for String Quartet No. 4. (vb)
Source: IAR, gramophone.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, ahrc.ac.uk