As Chamber Music Scotland's Ensemble in Residence 2019-21, GAIA are passionate about amplifying women’s voices where they haven’t been heard before.

 

Our vision is to unveil the unheard and unseen voices of female composers from the past, whilst supporting our female contemporaries through cross genre collaboration and performance.

 

An ensemble with new priorities – we aim to shed light on previously overlooked female composers who have been written out of history or under recognised because of their gender. 

 

Through research about these women we hope to profile their lives and give insight to their work. We aspire to lift the anonymity of ‘young ladies’ writing around the 18thCentury in Scotland by performing and programming their compositions, along the way perhaps finding out a little about their lives. The importance of performing the music of genius yet overlooked female composers has never been more important in our current society. An increasing social awareness that these women where neither seen nor heard leads us to believe that a substantial amount of music from the last few hundred years has been either lost, buried or published under a male alias. Our intention is to discover, arrange, love and play this music to the public through cello and violin duo, a much loved instrumentation in 17th and 18th century Scotland, not to mention an ensemble written for by many male classical composers music. 

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With the rise of equality and gender neutral approaches in society such as 50/50 workplaces and equal pay, do our classical traditions tie us to an outdated patriarchal social system where women are excluded from creative privilege?  

 

GAIA aims to set the stage for pacified and subdued female voices to be seen and heard.

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