March of the Women
Promenade concert in the Botanical Garden
With works by Raffaella Aleotti, Laura Hawley, Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Ethel Smyth, Louise Reichardt, Evita Rudžionytė, Karin Rehnqvist and others
Music director: Keno Weber, Jens Arndt
Johann Friedrich Reichardt University Choir Halle
Pfeiferstuhl Music Halle
50 €
Complementing the male-image theme of this year’s festival, the chamber choir section of the Johann Friedrich Reichardt University Choir presents a kind of “ladies’ choice” – a programme consisting exclusively of works by female composers. After women were for centuries underestimated and systematically barred from “male professions”, the Halle-based ensemble shows how rich and stylistically diverse women’s music history is. Ethel Smyth was the first woman to study composition in Leipzig. Moreover, she was politically engaged in the Suffragettes movement, which fought for voting rights for women in the UK in the early 20th century. The March of the Women became the anthem for women’s rights worldwide – and is the well-deserved title of this concert. So, start with a stroll through the Botanical Garden, then march through music history side by side with Raffaella Aleotti, Fanny Hensel, Ethel Smyth, Evita Rudžionytė and Karin Rehnqvist.
In collaboration with the Botanical Garden of Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg