Real Men are Feminists

 

This blog is written with profound gratitude to all the special men and women who have supported my dreams as a composer even though I was born female.  

Some years ago realised that I would need to develop a strong sense of humour in relation to the continuing occasional hidden sexism that I encounter as a composer. It is often subtle but can feel like a sad rock in the stomach.

'I worked with another lady pianist' says a singer recently. What is a lady pianist ?  I think. Surely he saw from my email that I have a doctorate and that I am his conductor?

 'How to you identify sexually' a form for a composition residency from Snape requests. ' I identify as a successful male composer ' I write with a sense of ironic desperation and get the residency, although I now would say, I identify as a successful composer, period! 

As a woman who composes it is still not a good idea to express strong views or heaven forfend be trenchant however it is perfectly ok to be strong if you are male. When are we all going to wake up ? Women are not going to go away, we are people too.

 'Who are you?' a top publisher (a woman) parries at me in an opera conference break. 'I am Susannah Self, a composer' She visibly sighs. 'Oh women composers they are so lightweight'. I have already noted she has only one woman on her roster, but I hold my cool and dig into my humour sack. 'Perhaps you would like to have lunch so that we can discuss the future of women composers otherwise your publishing house could join the dinosaurs?' She weakly laughs and we have an amenable lunch although I doubt the lady is for turning.

In a cross section of contemporary operas staged by major opera companies in period 2016/2019 the five that I saw featured a proliferation of male protagonists: Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur (2008), George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (2012) and Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), Hector Parra’s Les Bienveillantes (2019) and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz (2015). 

'Opera director Phyllida Lloyd says there is a conversation ‘that is being had amongst women in the theatre, about the dearth of great roles for women over a certain age, and also [how] job opportunities are much narrower forwomen who are of unconventional size, shape, accent, ethnic origin, whatever.’ 

(Saner, 2016: The Guardian)

' You conduct rather well for a.... ' Oops! The male adjudicator at a conducting competition (2014) trails away his words having realised it was wrong but then goes on to put his foot in it in a private moment with me by saying 'I don't like it that you are so tall'. What the ...! Three years later, 2017, a French newspaper publishes a diatribe by a French conductor who says that women shouldn't conduct ' because they are only suitable for the biological purpose of making babies'. I respond by creating a provocation with my creative partner Marina Sossi. We dress identically as conductors and hand out the pathetic article to passers by who are invited to read it and then do with the paper what they feel like such as crumpling it up in rage or attaching it to us. Most people are incredulous and shocked that someone would even dare to say this.

In the light of these occasional ongoing experiences it is hardly a surprise that I have sometimes wondered if I would have been better off as a man. But the truth is I don't identify as a man or a woman but as a person. I have always climbed trees, played football, made mud pies and lived out my dreams. I have been supported by an amazing Dad and the best male husband I could wish for, another composer brilliant composer in his own right but totally supportive, and yes real men are feminists. 

  

 

  

The Recording of The Sea Requiem

The première of The Sea Requiem was in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral, 1st April 2023. The Sea Requiem is composed for soprano, mezzo, tenor and baritone soloists, SATB chorus, two horns and string orchestra. The orchestration is designed to work alongside Fauré’s Requiem for SATB choir and soloists, strings and two horns in a new arrangement by Michael Christie. 

The score can be viewed and purchased via

 composersedition.com/susannah-self-sea-requiem/ 

Outside my composing studio the ARC in Hindringham, Norfolk

 And the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral 

In the summer of 2021 on the beautiful and very hot island of Skyros, I set out to compose a Requiem in memory of my father. It is crafted to be sung by standard choral societies so the compositional material is intentionally tuneful and harmonically rich. In addition to the traditional Latin texts, I included more complex numbers for the soloists who sing settings of poems about the sea by Keats, Dickinson and Whitman.  

Soprano Aria

Bass Aria

Tenor Aria

The performance here on SoundCloud is sung by The North Sea Singers and The North Sea Orchestra led by The Chaos Collective with Ivan McCready on solo cello and Catrina Nixon and Trevor Denyer on horns. 

Vocal soloists: 

Catherine Joule - Soprano, 

Christopher Lemmings - Tenor,

 Julian Godlee - Bass. 

Susannah Self - Conducter and Mezzo. 

Michael Christie Co-conductor and Orchestral Manager.

Here is the SoundCloud link

https://soundcloud.com/selfmademusic/the-sea-requiem-composed-by-dr-susannah-self?si=cdd5bc5e55684c34aecd8132232ce661&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

I worked all day on the audio and video mix of performances of The Sea Requiem in Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral with the preview in Hindringham Church. The two acoustics have different preferences: 

The Lady Chapel for the choir and Hindringham Church for the soloists. 

It is a juggling act of cutting and matching plus balancing with the recording studio in Logic Pro.

Inside The Lady Chapel

North Sea Singers and Orchestra

SOME EXTRACTS OF THE SCORE

Introit

Kyrie

As if the Sea Should Part Soprano Solo

As if the Sea Should Part Soprano Solo

Offertorium Solo Quartet

Sanctus

 Song of Myself  Bass Solo

De Profundis Mezzo Solo and Choir

Pie Jesu

Agnus Dei

The Sea by John Keats Tenor Solo

Libera Me

Dies Irae

Lux Aeterna Mezzo solo

14. In Paradisum

The Lady Chapel, Ely

For these concerts I am conducted my own ensemble, North Sea Voices and Orchestra led by The Chaos Collective https://www.chaos-collective.com who are a top professional string quartet based in coastal North Norfolk. 

The Chaos Collective

The whole North Sea ensemble has performed in my operas in Vienna, Cambridge and Birmingham. Funding for this project was provided by auctioning movements of the Sea Requiem as dedications to loved ones. This method of fundraising combined with a recent exhibition of my art and a very generous anonymous donation raised over £5,500, enough to cover in advance the fees of the players and soloists. 

Tickets to the concerts were free with a retiring collections, half to a cause and half to cover venue hire costs. 

Hindringham Church :£1,100.00 Gross: £550.00 for the church tower in Hindringham. 

The Lady Chapel: £1,500.00 Gross: £ 725.00 for new RNLI lifeboat at Wells Next-The-Sea in North Norfolk. 

In Hindringham Church for the Preview

Solo quartet with Michael Christie conducting

In Hindringham Church 

With Kris Neilsen

In Hindringham Church

In Norfolk

When a parent dies when you are singing abroad

In 2004 I won a year's contract in an audition with 30 other mezzos to sing Mistress Quickly in Verdi's Falstaff and Mrs Gross in Britten's Turn of The Screw at The Landestheater in Salzburg. It was a dream come true. Better roles than I had had at The Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent plus the thrill of living in mountains in the romantic Austrian winter with cross country ski-ing easily available. 

My mother visited in the spring. We had a wonderful time drinking Grüner Veltliner on the roof terrace of the Hotel Stein and enjoying my performances and the general camaraderie. However she was not well. I knew in my heart that on her return to the UK she wouldn't make it. The heart surgeon said that one in twenty drop dead within the first thirty days of the operation. And so it was that the day after I had walked into the Salzburg mountains and seen a luminous sunset, my mother died. Thirty days exactly since her aortic valve had been replaced. I contemplated the wild garlic growing outside my urban apartment in Rettenparkstrasse.

" Can I speak to Penny ?" "Oh, I am so sorry " the nurse said "But Penny just died". I could hear my husband wail on another extension. What a co-incidence that we had rung at the same time, me from Salzburg, he from Hampstead. It was almost worse to hear him sobbing rather than receive the news that my brave Mum was no more. What should I do? Go home immediately? But for what? There had been no provision for goodbyes, anyway the Ryanair flight had already gone that day. 

Frau Schlager the Landestheater Intendant's secretary was uncommonly sympathetic. I performed Mrs Grose that night and was beautifully supported by the wonderful Maestro Ivor Bolton.

Mrs Grose in The Turn of The Screw

"Susannah Self is a British singer who also sings Mistress  Quickly in Salzburg, her Mrs Grose is as good as any I have heard"

Hugh Canning Opera Magazine 2005

Journey to The Self

When I became fascinated with Jung, many people made a joke of my name in relation to the Jungian concept of The Self! Pure coincidence I would suggest although a Jungian might say there is at least some synchronicity here. 

In my opera Analysis for non binary voice, electronics and optional string quintet. https://composersedition.com/susannah-self-analysis/ I explore scenes from my own Jungian Analysis, some of which in hindsight are very funny such as The Crazed Conductor and The Casting Couch. 

But it is an enduring love affair with Jung that leads me deep into drawing inspiration from his magnitudinous works to compose pieces such as E Perso Nel Tempo which is inspired by the Red Book https://composersedition.com/susannah-self-e-perso-nel-tempo/ ( chamber orchestra with voice) https://composersedition.com/susannah-self-e-perso-nel-tempo-version-for-chamber-orchestra/ (without voice).

View over Lake Maggiore from the dining room at The Eranos Centre

Inevitably my interests led me last autumn to the Eranos Centre in Switzerland where I gained the opportunity to make a composing retreat. Out of the experience I have created two contrasting works. 

First a formal composition: Harbour 8' for solo violin, string orchestra and wind quintet https://composersedition.com/susannah-self-night-sea-journey-ii-harbour/

Here is a synthetically generated performance of how Harbour will sound 

https://youtu.be/Ie-wQALkcB4

The Harbour at The Eranos Centre 

The second piece is called  Journey to The Self. I created this on my return using more experimental composition techniques interfaced with stands of Jungian thought and my own observations.    

Journey to the Self is a meditative account of my four day composing retreat at The Eranos Centre in Switzerland, October 2022. In particular Jung liked to attend and speak at conferences here . The verbal reflections include synchronistic observations, quotes from Jung , Murray Stein and my own impressions which connect to the piece I composed at Eranos called "Harbour". For the soundscape for Journey to the Self I multi-layered my voice using various transformations set against the backdrop of a gong that is in the garden at Eranos. I then delicately dusted in a deepening synthesiser to enhance the dream like quality of the refection.

Here is the link to the film of Journey to The Self

https://youtu.be/5UEwD0TC7Cs

The Round Table at the Eranos Centre overlooking Lake Maggiore

Finally I made the 1'30" video by the lakeside at Eranos to give a taste of the inspirational qualities that have led me to embark on this work.

https://youtu.be/xVL7fw4a8mo

View from the room where Jung stayed at The Eranos Institute