Dr Leah Broad, a Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, University of Oxford, is currently writing a group biography of Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen for Faber.
She is keen to make contact with any BMS members who may have known Clarke, Howell or Carwithen – maybe some of our BMS members have been taught by them, performed with them, or knew them as a friend?
Described as a ‘dazzling young musicologist’, Dr Leah Broad has appeared on BBC Radio 3, at the Proms and the Hay Festival. Winner of the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism, she is also the founder of the Oxford Culture Review and runs a podcast called Notes on Notes.
Due to be published in Spring 2023, Quartet will be a radical feminist history of four ‘trailblazing’ women composers.
The synopsis explains: ‘In their day, Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen were celebrities; now, they are ghostly presences in our music histories, on the margins of the classical canon.
‘With a panoramic sweep – encompassing the suffragette movement and two world wars, from London to New York – Dr Broad’s majestic group biography resurrects their extraordinary lives and music for a new generation.’
Dr Broad added: ‘We’re at a turning point in classical music. Thanks to years of campaigning, women composers are slowly being better represented in our concerts and recordings. These performances are showing us just how much incredible music we’ve been missing and how limited our histories have been.‘
If you have information about these composers please email Dr Broad at leahcbroad@gmail.com
More information about Quartet can be found on the Bookseller website.