'Fabulous Music' By Women Composers

Gloriana choir 'Celestial Revelations' concert in honour of International Women's Day

The Gloriana Choir

Gloriana – a women’s voice choir - will  celebrate International Women’s Day with a performance in Chiswick, entitled 'Celestial Revelations' featuring music by  talented women composers, including local composer Cecilia McDowall.

The concert will take place at St Michael & All Angels Church, Bath Road, on Thursday, March 9th, (the day after International Women's Day), at 6.30pm (tickets at £15 available on the door or through ticketsource .

Gloriana is led by top choral director and singer Deborah Miles-Johnson. Deborah is a former member of the BBC Singers, The Sixteen and the Extra Chorus at the Royal Opera House. As well as performing, her versatile career includes training many major London choirs, a thriving teaching practice and singing on backing tracks for several famous films.  

Deborah is also the conductor of the prize-winning Imperial Male Voice Choir.

"Women have always made significant contributions to the classical music world but their work hasn’t often been widely heard. We want to put this right," she told Chiswickw4.com.

"We will feature Clara Schumann, from  the nineteenth century, the extraordinarily gifted Lili Boulanger; Rebecca Clarke at the turn of the last century and Grace Williams at its end, plus brilliant women of our own age  who have written music  of widely differing sonorities. 

"Two clarinets add fizz to the piece by my friend and colleague Judith Bingham, and there are solos to showcase wonderful voices in the choir."

Gloriana was created in 2016 and Deborah has handpicked singers from all over London, including a number from Chiswick. It is an auditioned choir and they welcome new members, of all ages, with a good standard in musicianship, the ability to sight-read music is important. They have a loyal following and hope to expand their fan base in Chiswick. 

The choir is in great demand and performances include singing at the Sky Pavilion, Southwark Cathedral and on Classic FM.

"This is our first concert in Chiswick, most of our concerts are held in London, as our members come from all over, so we do tend to rehearse and perform in central London. We are delighted to be performing at St Michael & All Angels and really look forward to making new friends and followers and perhaps new members  in Chiswick. 

"We are particularly pleased to feature a Chiswick-based composer, Cecilia McDowall, who is coming to our rehearsal and we will be singing a very witty piece penned by Cecilia," says Deborah.

The concert features twelve women composers, three of whom are living.

Deborah says; " I do have a commitment to female composers and their compositions, and I do feel that some of them have been unjustly neglected, so yes this concert is 90 per cent female because of International Women's Day. However there is a lot of very good music by male composers, so for balance I have included pieces by Debussy and Elgar."

The choir will be supported by a female pianist and two female clarinetists.

Their next concert will be a performance of Vivaldi, on 21 May at St Stephen's Church, Hampstead, and they hope to start giving performances abroad from next year.


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March 3, 2023