As a women’s chamber choir, the Canticle Singers strives to regularly perform works by women composers. Here are four composers we are highlighting in honor of National Women’s Day.
Originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Kathleen Allan is a Canadian conductor, composer, and soprano soloist working in early, contemporary, and symphonic repertoire.
Her compositions have been performed, commissioned, and recorded internationally.
Allan has performed throughout the United States and Canada and has led orchestras including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and Early Music Vancouver.
The 2016 recipient of the Sir Ernest MacMillan Prize in Choral Conducting, she is the Artistic Director of the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto and is a founding co-Artistic Director of Arkora, an electric vocal chamber consort dedicated to blurring lines between the music of our time and masterworks from the ancient repertoire. Additionally, she has received 2 Newfoundland Arts and Letters Awards for her compositions.
Allan did not at first consider a life in music, but had planned a career in engineering. According to the University of British Columbia website, she “had all but accepted a full scholarship to [University of] Waterloo for electrical engineering,” but decided to apply to UBC and “get music out of my system for four years. Yeah… That didn’t work at all.”
She furthered her education with a master’s degree in conducting from Yale University.
In an interview on the publishing platform Medium, Allan states “The folk music of my roots in Newfoundland influences everything I do.”
This spring, The Canticle SIngers will perform Katheen Allan’s setting of the folk song The Maid on the Shore.
This rousing setting uses percussion and women’s voices to celebrate the triumph of a young woman on the shores of Newfoundland.
Ivette Herryman was born on the Island of Youth, Cuba in 1982.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Higher Institute of Arts, Havana and a master’s degree in composition from Baylor University, from which she graduated with distinction.
She has composed for solo instruments, chamber and large ensemble, electronic media, sacred ensemble, film, and musical theater, and her work has been performed in Cuba, Mexico, El Salvador, and the United States.
Herryman is currently an Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, NY.
The text of Ms. Herryman’s composition Sigue, performed this spring by The Canticle Singers, derives from a poem of the same name by the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén (1902-1989).
The speaker asks a traveler not to mention him when walking by the house of a certain woman, and that the traveler not stop, even if she calls him.
The rhythm of the walking bass in the piano accompaniment is characteristic of the Cuban genre son, which blends Spanish and African elements.
Dessa is a singer, rapper, and writer who has made a career of bucking genres and defying expectations.
Her résumé as a musician includes performances at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, co-compositions for 100-voice choir, performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, and top-200 entries on the Billboard charts. She contributed to the #1 album The Hamilton Mixtape: her track, “Congratulations,” has notched over 20 million streams. As a writer, she’s been published by The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler, broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio, and published a memoir-in-essays (My Own Devices, 2018) in addition to two literary collections.
As a speaker, Dessa has delivered keynote speeches and presentations on art, science, and entrepreneurship; guest lectures at universities and colleges across the US; and a TED Talk about her science experiment on how to fall out of love.
She’s also the host of Deeply Human, a podcast created by the BBC and American Public Media. Dessa has been covered by Pitchfork, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. The LA Times says she “sounds like no one else.” NPR’s All Songs Considered calls her “a national treasure.” On the stage and on the page, Dessa’s style is defined by ferocity, wit, tenderness, and candor.
Jocelyn Hagen composes music that has been described as “simply magical” (Fanfare Magazine) and “dramatic and deeply moving” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul). She is a pioneer in the field of composition, pushing the expectations of musicians and audiences with large-scale multimedia works, electroacoustic music, dance, and opera. Her melodic music is rhythmically driven and texturally complex, rich in color and deeply heartfelt. A champion of the female spirit, many of her projects focus on the stories of women. She is a co-founder of Graphite Publishing and the band Nation, singing her heart out every chance she gets.
As a fierce advocate for gender equality and inclusivity, Hagen developed the initiative Compose Like A Girl to amplify female-identifying composers, help conductors diversify their concerts, and work toward more equality in music programming and commissioning. Through her podcasts, she engages in discussions with renowned composers like Reena Esmail, Chen Yi, and Rosephanye Powell. These conversations delve into the dynamics of opportunity, power, and privilege within the arts, advocating for female-identifying composers to embrace their unique artistic expression with confidence. The initiative also provides mentorship to emerging women composers, and highlights excellent work through her newly developed Compose Like A Girl Choral Series.
The composition Controlled Burn, presented this season by The Canticle Singers, is a collaboration between Dessa and Jocelyn Hagen that crosses the line between hip-hop and classical genres and speaks of the fire of life and the many “selves” within each of us born from the constant change that carries us through life.