Rachael Lin performs composer Bree van Reyk’s “Redaction Antiphon,” for piano, viola, cello, percussion, and a redacted tape recording, at a recent “Composing Women” concert at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Photo by Stefanie Zingsheim.
“When Sydney Conservatorium of Music celebrated its centenary eight years ago it set up its Composing Women project in a move to abolish the glass ceiling and address the gender imbalance in contemporary classical composition,” writes Steve Moffatt in Monday’s (3/13) Limelight Magazine (Australia). “Led by celebrated Perth-born composer Liza Lim since 2018, it has achieved striking success with four chamber operas produced in Sydney, as well as multiple collaborations with some of Australia’s leading orchestras and choirs. By way of celebration Lim and the Con staged a concert showcasing works by five composing women—Brenda Gifford, May Lyon, Fiona Hill, Jane Sheldon and Bree van Reyk—performed by the current Fellows of Sydney Symphony Orchestra and guests under the baton of Roger Benedict, the SSO’s former Principal Viola, before an enthusiastic audience of around 200 people…. The five composers received a long and loud ovation.”
