The London-based Calathea Quartet, recently returned from tours of Ireland and New Zealand, examine music written for string quartet by women composers from the 1800’s to the present day. With a selection of works in different styles, this informal performance will also feature discussion of the compositions and the lives of the women who wrote them.

While women have performed and composed throughout the history of western art music, until recently their works have often not received the same veneration as those of their male counterparts. Included in the programme are the String Quartet in Eb Major by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, sister to Felix, and the String Quartet in E Minor by Ina Boyle, an Irish student of Vaughan Williams, neither of which were published in their composers’ lifetimes. Also programmed are several contemporary works by Imogen Holst, Canadian Cassandra Miller, and New Zealander Salina Fisher.