Female Composers Wanted!

The 8th of March 2015, our sister choir, the Linköping University Women’s Choir Linnea, put on the consert ”Ett knippe kvinnokamp” (”A bundle of women’s lib”), and we were, along with Linköping’s Indie choir, invited for a guest performance. We could perform any two pieces we wanted, with one demand from Linnea; the piece must have either been composed or have lyrics written by a woman. This proved a greater challenge than expected. Our library of sheet music, stocked with over six hundred pieces for male voice choir, contained only a handful of works by female authors. We barely managed fulfil Linnea’s demand and sang ”Större och Mindre (Greater and Smaller)” by Karin Rehnqvist, as well as ”Bordsvisa för gifta männer (Tablesong for married men)”, a poem by Anna Maria Lenngren put to music by Jacob Niclas Ahlström.

The interest among female composers to write music for male voice choir is evidently very small. To remedy this our conductor Christina Hörnell came up with an excellent plan. We will issue an award for composers of music for male voice choir, available exclusively for women! In issuing this award we seek to take an active part in the development of our artform, male choir music. We want to show that beyond cherishing old traditions one also has the opportunity to create brand new. We want to make male choir music more including and increase its diversity. Above all we want more good music to perform!