Putting music by women centre stage β the successful world record attempt
On Thursday 22 February, over 100 musicians set a new Guinness World Record for the longest acoustic, live-streamed concert ever performed.
Artists like soprano Carolyn Sampson, string quartet Vulva Voce and composer/performer CN Lester gathered at the Brazilian embassy in London to begin a 24-hour gig where all the music performed was by women and non-binary composers. The project is called and is the brainchild of soprano Gabriella Di Laccio.
Let HER MUSIC Play celebrated music from all genres, from classical to contemporary, jazz, pop, folk and beyond.
On Thursday 22 February, listeners could tune in to the live concert to enjoy music by over a hundred composers, including pioneering artist Kate Bush, 19th-century classical guitarist Emilia Giuliani, pianist Lola Perrin (who describes her work as "rave music for butterflies"), Brazilian composer Chiquinha Gonzaga, Errolyn Wallen (one of the world’s most performed living composers), avant-garde pop maverick Björk, Italian Baroque composer and performer Barbara Strozzi and the first African-American woman to have a piece performed by a major orchestra, Florence Price.
Gabriella created the charity, to celebrate, advance and amplify women in music, and was listed as one of the ΒιΆΉΙη’s 100 most inspirational and influential women in the world in 2018.
"As a woman in music and an artist myself, I am fully committed to fundamentally transforming the music industry, ensuring my role actively contributes to meaningful change. This event is my way of trying to connect people around the world to join me on this cause," she says.
The lineup of performers for the concert included sopranos Carolyn Sampson OBE and Helen Lacey, baritone Roderick Williams OBE, tenors Tim Parker-Langston, Thomas Elwin and Daniel Norman, cellist Hadewich van Gent and string quartet Vulva Voce.
A report by Donne Foundation in 2022 showed that there was a significant disparity between how much of the repertoire performed by orchestras was written by men compared to works by women. The study, which analysed over 20,400 works performed by 111 orchestras across 31 countries, found that only 7% of compositions performed were written by women. That statistic drops to 1.11% for music written by Black and Asian women.
Tom Service, presenter of Music Matters on ΒιΆΉΙη Radio 3, says, “There used to be an assumption that women composers before the 20th century were few in number, and confined by the sexism of the time to limited genres. That's not true: there were thousands of women writing across all genres and scales.”
Gabriella’s foundation has also developed a database of 5,000 women composers, from mediaeval times to the 21st century, highlighting the often-overlooked contributions of women to music.
The Donne Foundation has officially shattered the Guinness World Record for the Longest Acoustic Music Live-Streamed Concert.
Spearheaded by soprano Gabriella Di Laccio, the visionary Donne Foundation live-streamed the concert for a total of 26 hours 18 minutes and 57 seconds, showcasing music exclusively by women and non-binary composers and songwriters. 96 musicians performed music by over 140 women and non-binary composers, arrangers and songwriters.
PHOTOCREDITS: Késia Decoté © Antonio Martins Neto; Eleanor Kelly © Rachel Clarke Photography; BLÁNID © Henry James.
