Lost Voices: How Four Women Changed the Musical World

Fenella Humphreys, Nicola Eimer, and Dr Leah Broad

  • Sunday 2 July | 3.00pm
  • Wesley Centre| Harrogate
  • Tickets: £22

    U18s, student and UC recipients tickets available.

    Please note that a £1.75 booking fee applies at time of booking

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Ethel Smyth Allegro Moderato from Sonata, Op. 7
Doreen Carwithen Allegro con Moto from Sonata for Violin and Piano
Rebecca Clarke Midsummer Moon
Rebecca Clarke Sonata Movement in G major
Dorothy Howell The Moorings
Dorothy Howell Andante from Sonata for Violin and Piano
Ethel Smyth Finale from Sonata, Op. 7
Violinist and winner of the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award Fenella Humphreys presents a new collaboration with Oxford historian Leah Broad which explores ‘lost voices’ through violin music. Based around Broad’s debut book Quartet (March 2023), this concert explores the work of four British female composers. Ethel Smyth, Doreen Carwithen, Rebecca Clarke, and Dorothy Howell composed some of the century’s most popular music and pioneered creative careers; but today, they are ghostly presences, surviving only as muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten – until now. Lost Voices breathes new life into the music and stories of these women, intertwining Broad’s narrative with performances of their music by Humphreys and pianist Nicola Eimer.
Wesley Centre, Oxford Street Harrogate, HG1 1PP

Doors will open at 2:30pm. Seating is unreserved and Friends of the Festival will have priority entry.

Fenella Humphreys, winner of the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award, has attracted critical admiration and audience acclaim with the grace and intensity of her remarkable performances.

With her playing described in the press as “alluring”, “unforgettable” and “a wonder”, Fenella is one of the UK’s most established and versatile violinists. She enjoys a busy career combining chamber music with solo work, performing in the most prestigious venues around the world. She is frequently broadcast on the BBC, Classic FM, Scala Radio and international radio stations.

Fenella performs widely as a soloist. Her recent album of Sibelius’ solo works with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and George Vass has been featured in BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library, Gramophone Magazine’s Guide to the Concerto, and was Album of the Week on Scala Radio.

Fenella plays on a G.B. Guadagnini violin kindly on loan from Jonathan Sparey.

British Pianist Nicola Eimer has performed as a soloist and chamber music across Europe, Asia and America and has played at the major UK venues including the Barbican and Wigmore Hall.

A graduate of New York’s Juilliard School, Nicola held a Fulbright Scholarship to study with Joseph Kalichstein. She previously studied in London with Danielle Salamon, and then with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music, where she was subsequently awarded a Fellowship and then nominated an Associate of the Academy.

Nicola’s passion for chamber music has led to a wide range of partnerships, in duos as well as larger ensembles. She has won both the chamber music and solo awards in the Royal Overseas League Music Competition.

Leah Broad is an award-winning music writer and historian. Currently a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, she specialises in twentieth century music and particularly women in music. Her first book, Quartet, is a group biography of four women composers — Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell, and Doreen Carwithen.

Winner of the 2015 Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism, Leah’s writing has appeared in outlets including the Guardian, Observer, London Review of Books, BBC Music Magazine, Huffington Post, and The Conversation. Leah was selected as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2016, so is frequently on BBC radio discussing topics from Nordic music to women composers.

Fenella Humphreys employs her customary imaginative flair and luminous palette of tone colours to tease the beauty out of a set of pieces that are compact in scale but not in ambition…Humphreys and Eimer at their stellar best…
Catherine Nelson , The Strad Magazine