An Introduction to Ethel Smyth: “A born fighter and a rebel”
Join us for an introduction to the extraordinary, iconoclastic figure of composer Ethel Smyth.
Whether it’s mixing with Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Virginia Woolf, Queen Victoria and so many more; leaving home as a teenager to study music in Germany; campaigning and being imprisoned for women’s rights; undertaking numerous extra-marital affairs with both sexes or breaking down all kinds of norms and barriers as a female composer, Ethel Smyth’s life was packed with incident.
How does The Wreckers, Smyth’s most famous opera, embody this same rebellious spirit and approach to life? We’ll be taking a closer look at the music and the themes of this exhilarating and too-long neglected work.
Presented by Alexandra Coghlan. Speakers include: Sophie Fuller (Trinity Laban Conservatoire); Chris Wiley (University of Surrey); Kate Kennedy (Wolfson College, Oxford).
You can watch the talk from 7.00pm on 8 March on this page (below), on our YouTube channel and on our Facebook page.
This is a recording of a live talk from November 2021, originally presented to our Members.