The Ladies Speak

Beatrice Nicolas discusses the folk idioms and civil rights struggles that inspired the composition of Margaret Bonds' Troubled Water, which the British concert pianist recorded on her 2024 EP Black and Classical a mere four years after the suite was finally published.  

Hear the full interview with Beatrice Nicolas as she dives into the folk idioms and civil rights struggles that inspired the work of Margaret Bonds, as well the friendship of the composer and pianist with Florence Price and poet Langston Hughes, and her journey through some of the most turbulent social justice struggles of the 20th century.

Florence Price is now widely known as the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra, as well as the composer of over 300 symphonies, concertos, sonatas and songs that show an astounding virtuosity and range. Her earlier work has received less attention, but in this episode we explore the extraordinary array of influences in it through the journey of award-winning pianist and scholar Karen Walwyn, who followed Price's path from Little Rock to Chicago as she prepared to record an album of the composer's nascent piano compositions.  

Award-winning pianist and Black Chicago Renaissance scholar Dr. Samantha Ege introduces listeners to composer and pianist Helen Eugenia Hagan, who wrote a virtuosic piano concerto while still a student at Yale University. Dr. Ege also recounts her 2022 collaboration to bring the work back to the stage where it debuted more than a century earlier. 

London-based Ivory Piano Duo Ensemble's Natalie Tsaldarakis and Panayotis Archontides talk about their collaboration with composer Lola Perrin to transcribe Hagan's Piano Concerto in C Minor from a handwritten score provided by Yale University. 

On this episode, composer, conductor and bassoonist Damali Willingham shines a brief light on L. Viola Kinney, of whom we know little, but who wrote "Mother's Sacrifice," a romantic piano work that still captivates to this day. 

Gena Branscombe rose from the depths of great personal tragedy to write what was hailed as one of the finest oratorios of its time. Listen now to her story, and the journey of mezzo-soprano Kathleen Shimeta to preserve Branscombe's legacy in this century.

Margaret Ruthven Lang was the first woman composer to write a work performed by a major American orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1893. She went on to write many piano works and songs that were performed and lauded around the world. Yet she quit composing in 1917, at the age of 50. Find out why, and the importance of her work to American music history, in the first episode of The Ladies Speak. Hosted by Fuse Ensemble founder Gina Biver, and featuring interviews with Juliana Yap, James Johnston, and Grammy-nominated pianist Lucy Mauro.

The  docuseries The Ladies Speak explores the lives and achievements of the great, and largely unknown, American women classical composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries.