From mini Mars bars to matters of life or death: Errollyn Wallen on becoming a composer

In an exclusive extract from her new book the musician recalls the shift from concertgoer to concert-giver – and how it involved chocolate, and explains why opera composers lie, cheat, steal, murder and live to tell the tale

As a student at Goldsmiths I was out practically every night attending concerts and was at nearly every important premiere – Ferneyhough, Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle, Boulez, Reich, LeFanu – mostly male composers, it is true. So very many concerts by London Sinfonietta. But how did I make the transition from concertgoer to concert-giver?

Nicola LeFanu did so much to promote her mother Elizabeth Maconchy’s music and I remember her saying how difficult it had been for her mother to be taken seriously as a composer. Nicola, along with several of us fellow female composers, musicians and administrators, founded the organisation Women in Music in 1987 to help address the woeful situation. Wherever I turned there was rejection. Nothing about me fitted the picture of a composer. I didn’t even fit the image to myself – I wasn’t white, male, dead, in a wig or on a wall. I applied to all the major composing courses, including Tanglewood, Banff and Dartington, and entered many competitions with no success. I also applied to the brilliant Gulbenkian Course for Choreographers and Composers, finally getting admitted on my third attempt. My ambitions for my music seemed out of step with the prevailing classical-music structures.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/sqyGI1T