Kashperova, Ali-Zadeh & Sokolovic: Their Lives and Music
Women’s History Month in March saw three new composers added to our ongoing series of women composer features: newly rediscovered Romantic composer Leokadiya Kashperova, 75-year-old Franghiz Ali-Zadeh from the Caucasus region, and recently signed Belgrade-born and Montreal-based composer Ana Sokolovic.
Revealing the rich heritage of music by women composers continues with our series of Life and Music features exploring major figures published by Boosey & Hawkes and Sikorski. Three new additions span 125 years of creativity, with Leokadiya Kashperova, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and Ana Sokolovic all enjoying increasingly wide performance internationally.
Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940)
For many years occupying only a footnote to musical history as the piano teacher of Stravinsky, Leokadiya Kashperova has enjoyed a resurgence of interest, illuminating her career as an extraordinarily talented composer-pianist from the late Romantic period. Her catalogue testifies to more than 50 years’ creativity and establishes her as one of the earliest female Russian composers of international stature. Her works, including a symphony, piano concerto, chamber pieces, keyboard, choral and vocal music, are being published in the new Boosey & Hawkes Kashperova edition in conjunction with scholar Dr Graham Griffiths.
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (b.1947)
The highly individual music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, born in Baku and now sharing her time between Azerbaijan and Germany, reflects the colourful cultural contrast between Eastern and Western traditions. Compositional styles from her home region of the Caucasus are encountered repeatedly, such as the Mugam, a fixed modal melody type, which she combines with characteristics of the Western avant-garde to create distinctive soundworlds. A central cycle of her works has been grouped under the generic theme of the 'Silk Road', and she has been inspired by poets from the old Persian lands of the Near East including Nizami and Nasimi.
Ana Sokolovic (b.1968)
The imaginative, rhythm-driven music of Belgrade-born Ana Sokolovic ranges from critically acclaimed operas and orchestra works to powerful solo and chamber pieces. Fleeing the civil wars in Yugoslavia during the 1990s, she immigrated to Canada in order to continue pursuing her career in music, settling in Montreal. She describes immigrating as a catalyzing moment in her career -instrumental in clarifying her identity as a composer and helping her embrace the influences of Balkan culture in her music. Her output ranges from chamber works, through the violin concerto Evta to the opera for 6 female singers, Svadba (Wedding).
Other women composers featured in our Life and Music series include:
Lera Auerbach
Unsuk Chin
Anna Clyne
Sofia Gubaidulina
Elena Kats-Chernin
Meredith Monk
Olga Neuwirth
Iris ter Schiphorst
For a full list of leading women composers published by Boosey & Hawkes and Sikorski please visit www.boosey.com/womencomposers
