AN ambitious project to promote more female composers will see award-winning musician Karine Polwart writing a libretto for the first time. She is just one of those taking part in the Composeher project, an initiative from the Glasgow School of Art Choir (GSA Choir) to address the under-representation of female composers across the music industry.

The scale of the challenge facing female composers was highlighted in the Counting the Music Industry report published last year, which found that just 14% of the more than 12,000 writers represented by UK publishers were women.

With backing from Creative Scotland, the GSA Choir has now commissioned seven leading female composers from Scotland, England, Australia and the United States to create a set of entirely new choral works.

The project has already received an enthusiastic response to a £4000 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign launched on Monday to supplement the Creative Scotland funding. The campaign reached 79% of its target in just four days.

The seven commissioned composers are Dee Isaacs, Cecilia McDowall, Pippa Murphy, Sarah Rimkus, Ailie Robertson, Rebecca Rowe and Jane Stanley.

While some are basing their new choral works on adaptations of poetry and texts written by or about 20th-century women, Murphy has chosen to collaborate with Polwart for her piece. The pair have previously collaborated on Polwart’s album A Pocket of Wind Resistance, short-listed for Scottish Album of the Year.

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Polwart told the Sunday National she was “excited” about the project, although it would be “challenging”.

“It changes the way you think about writing when you know you are writing for lots of voices rather than just one,” she said. “That will be exciting. It will be quite different from what I usually do, so it’s new territory for me and it is a bit of a challenge.

“Normally I am always involved in the musical aspect in some way, but here I have no musical role at all.”

Polwart added: “It’s an important project because there is a lack of women composers getting large-scale commissions. Usually, in order to get commissions, you have to have had them so it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation.

“The crucial thing is breaking in and establishing enough of a portfolio of work to then be seen as an equal.”

She pointed out that there had recently been controversy over festivals that promoted male headline acts and neglected women.

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“It is a big issue right now and it has nothing to do with women not being good enough,” said Polwart. “It is just about trying to create the opportunity to allow a bit more of a level playing field.

“It is across the board, although my perception of the folk scene is that there are a lot of female composers and song writers, which is probably disproportionate relative to other scenes.”

She said she was glad to see the GSA Choir was trying to address the problem and that they had selected composers from a variety of backgrounds.

“The GSA Choir is a voluntary amateur choir, although they produce the highest quality music, and it is brilliant that an organisation like that has come up with a large scale composition project.”

Murphy, who has previously written an opera with Scots author Alexander McCall Smith, said she was delighted to have been chosen for the project.

“What is making this stand out is that the GSA Choir have been really bold in deciding to do a whole programme of new pieces by women composers,” she said. “It’s quite rare to have a whole concert of new works anyway, so to have a concert where every single piece is commissioned and written by female composers is great and they have selected a really interesting mix.”

The GSA Choir was established in 2012 by then-student Jamie Sansbury, and has since grown to become a recognised charitable organisation with over 115 members drawn from all walks of life. The choir is non-auditioned and open to all.

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“Composeher will be an impressive showcase for some of the very best talent in choral music today, and we hope it will encourage a wider, national discussion about the gender imbalance within the music industry,” said Sansbury.

“We look forward to performing and promoting the fantastic work of seven leading contemporary, choral composers. However, we need to raise £4000 more now to secure the rights to texts that the seven composers are using to inspire their new choral compositions.

“This is a really vital stage of the project as, without access to the poetry and written materials upon which they will be based, there will be no new compositions. We’re a voluntary, amateur ensemble with big ambitions, so we do need the support of the public to put together incredible projects like this.”

Alongside the commissions, the project will include a series of four workshops featuring the commissioned composers. These will be held in the run up to the premiere concert in May 2021.

A link to the donte page is available here