Royal College of Music Exhibition – Twelve Centuries of Women in Music

The Feminist Library is very pleased to collaborate with students from the Royal College of Music. They have put together the below exhibition on women composers as part of our Women’s History Month March Music Programme. It will be displayed here throughout the last week of Women’s History Month (22nd – 31st March).

Royal College of Music Exhibition – Twelve Centuries of Women in Music
These posters have been created by postgraduate students at the Royal College of Music studying on the course Women in Music. This course is open to women students (and those who identify as women) and includes instrumentalists, singers and composers. On the course, the students study the history of women in music and investigate the issues that still affect the lives of women working in music today. They have the opportunity to be mentored by a woman working in the industry and also undertake a research project which focuses on a single female musician, chosen from the whole history of music up to the present day.

For this exhibition, some of the students on the course have created posters on the life and work of their chosen musician. I hope very much that you will find this research as interesting as we have.
Dr Carola Darwin (Academic Professor, Royal College of Music)

Kassia: Poster by Hannah Parry
Hannah Parry is a Master’s student at the Royal College of Music in London, supported as an ABRSM scholar and by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. She studies recorder with Ashley Solomon, Maria Martinez Ayerza and Julien Feltrin, and baroque violin with Lucy Russell. She took part in an Erasmus exchange at Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels, studying with Bart Coen. Two of her recorders were funded by the Royal Philharmonic Society, and she plays a violin by Silvian Rusu which is genorously loaned by the Royal College of Music. She has taken part in masterclasses with Trevor Pinnock, Walter van Hauwe, Kees Boeke, Daniel Bruggen, Paul Leenhouts, Pierre Hamon and members of the Royal Wind Music. With ensembles from RCM she has performed at Buckingham Palace, the London Handel Festival, and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast from Windsor Castle. She has also performed at the Open Recorder Days Amsterdam festival, European Recorder Teachers’ Association conference in Cologne, the Royal Festival Hall, Cadogan Hall, the Adrian Boult Hall and Town Hall in Birmingham, and led a quintet at the Royal Albert Hall in the Schools’ Proms.

As a violinist, Hannah has performed with the Guy Barker Jazz Orchestra, and in the BBC Proms with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, and attended a course in jazz violin in Belgium with Alexandre Tripodi. She plays with many orchestras in London, including with the All Souls Orchestra which was broadcast live on the BBC One show. She has also played with a quartet, accompanied by the European Union Chamber Orchestra, and played a concerto as a finalist in the Marlowe Young Musician of the Year. She is a member of Street Orchestra Live, and has enjoyed other interesting projects such as playing in Leicester Prison, performing a concert for a deaf audience and arranging Bach’s Double Violin Concerto into hiphop music.

Alma Mahler: Poster by Grace O’Malley
Grace O’Malley is a 23 year-old first year Postgraduate soprano from Lancashire studying at the Royal College of Music, following completion of her Bachelor of Music degree here. She is a Derek Butler scholar supported by the Henry Wood Accommodation Trust and and is taught by Peter Savidge. Having started singing lessons at six, she attended Chethams School of Music as a Manchester Cathedral chorister at eight and went on to study at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music at ten for eight years with Linda Richardson. She was the gold medal winner at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in 2012 and was awarded the Helen Latto Award for Singing and the Rotary award for Performance at The JRNCM. Grace has raised over £100,000 for charities by organising concerts and producing four charity CDs. She has won many awards, including ‘BBC Rotary Young Citizen’ Award in 2013 where she sung live on the BBC. Grace is a founding member of The Rotaract Club of London and during the pandemic has organised and sang via zoom raising collectively £6000. In October 2019, Grace was the Soprano soloist in Lili Boulanger’s Hymne au Soleil (Les Sirenes) with the RCM Chamber Choir, conducted by Natalie Murray Beale. She participated in a Lieder masterclass with world-renowned accompanist, Helmut Deutsch and a vocal masterclass with Soprano Lynn Eustis. Grace is at her happiest when onstage performing for an audience.

Johanna Müller-Herman: Poster by Katrine Deleuran
Danish soprano Katrine Deleuran is a postgraduate student and a Spiller Award Holder at the Royal College of Music, studying with professor Rosa Mannion. Katrine is a Søholm Opera Young Artist 2020-21 and looks forward to singing the role of Nedda (Pagliacci) this summer and performing extracts from the role of Avis (The Wreckers) in the RCM Opera Scenes.
She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree with the highest honor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with professor Helene Gjerris. Previously Katrine earned a Bachelor’s degree in Musicology and Gender studies from the University of Copenhagen. At the same time she studied with Royal Danish opera singer Marianne Rørholm at a talent youth programme (MGK) in Copenhagen.

Fanny Hensel: Poster by Heming Li and Wanyi Yang
Chinese soprano Heming Li was a finalist at the 2013 CCTV Young Singers Television Grand Prix. She is currently studying at the Royal College of Music, London, for a Master of Performance with Justin Lavender. She is a KMEG Scholar, supported by the KMEG Scholarship. She earned her master’s degree from University of Birmingham and completed her bachelor’s degree at China Conservatory of Music. She has studied under English soprano Rita Cullis, British tenor Justin Lavender, Professor Nick Sears, and Italian soprano Luciana Serra. Heming hosted a graduation recital in 2019 at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham. Heming was selected for the 2020 “Shenzhen Singing Festival” China Vocal Talent Training Program. She won the Silver Award in the Beijing Division of the 10th Golden Bell China Vocal Competition in 2015. She has been invited to participate in performances of CCTV-Music and CCTV-3. She has also actively participated in public welfare performances of the China Youth Federation.

Wanyi Yang was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province,China, and is currently studying for a master’s degree in piano performance from the Royal Academy of Music, under the tutelage of the famous pianist Professor Andrew Zolinsky.
She graduated from the Piano Department of the Central Conservatory of Music and successfully completed the graduation concert. She then studied under the composer Liu Hongshun of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Professor Xu Jun, the dean of the Piano Department of the Nanjing University of the Arts, and Professor Pan Chun, the former deputy dean of the Piano Department of the Central Conservatory of Music. Wait.
During her time at school, she held a number of solo concerts and ensemble concerts in Nanjing, Beijing, and performed with her tutor Professor Pan Chun at Tsinghua University in 2017, which was widely acclaimed; She also participated in the music commemorating Mr. Ye Huifang in the concert hall of Nanjing University of the Arts.
Prizes include the first place in the professional youth group of the 2019 Steinberg Cup National Youth Piano Competition, and in the 4th Macau-Asia Pacific Youth Piano Open Youth Group; second place in the youth group of the first Yamaha National Piano Competitio and a Gold Award in the 4th International Chinese Arts Festival (Singapore) International Chinese Piano Competition Performance.