International Women’s Day, Tuesday 8 March 2022

Throughout March, 3MBS will celebrate International Women’s Day by shining a well-deserved spotlight on women composers and performers, past and present. Highlights include:

In the lead up to International Women’s Day Reflections will showcase composer, flautist and musicologist, Dr Johanna Selleck on Sunday 6 March, 4pm.

On Tuesday 8 March, 3MBS will broadcast 24 hours of music by women composers and performers.

Wednesday Night at the Opera on Wednesday 9 March will feature three important ‘firsts’:

The first opera by an Australian Indigenous singer and composer: Pecan Summer by Deborah Cheetham in 2010.

The first opera by a woman composer: La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina by the Florentine Italian Francesca Caccini in 1625.

The first, and only, opera by the American composer, Amy Beach: Cabildo in 1932

On Thursday evenings at 8pm, Illuminations will offer an in-depth program on one or more women composers.

Images (clockwise from top left): Kassia, Clara Schumann, Ethyel Smyth, Amanda Maier, Katie Abbott (photo by Pia Johnson)