By Martina Medina

Chiquinha was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1847. The daughter of a freed slave, she began composing piano pieces when she was still a girl. As an adult, she was the first woman in Brazil to conduct an orchestra and make a living from music in the 19th century, a time when there was much prejudice against women in society. We are talking about Chiquinha Gonzaga. Almost one hundred years after her death, she is one of the major influences in Brazilian music.

This is one of the stories of the almost five thousand female composers gathered in the project called “Donne: Women in Music”, created in 2018 by the classical singer Gabriella Di Laccio. It all started in 2015, when the Brazilian woman, who has been living in London for almost 20 years, was surprised to find an encyclopedia with six thousand female composers whom she had never heard of.

“History has certainly neglected these amazing women,” said the artist in an interview with JOCA. “I wanted to do my part and share these women’s stories, their music, and that in some way, this would inspire other people, not just musicians, but anyone who had been told they could not do something.”

The project has English content and information in text, educational videos, five original albums featuring only music by women composers, images and a blog that it is updated every day. One of Gabriella’s priorities is to make the project bilingual, so it can also be accessed in Portuguese.

Find out more about the project: bitly/joca-compositoras

Questions

1) According to the text, which of the alternatives is right?

a) Pianists are remembered everyday around the world.
b) Gabriella Di Laccio and Chiquinha Gonzaga were composers forgotten by history.
c) The stories of close to five thousand composers are told in the Donne: Women in Music project.
c) The project has a bilingual Portuguese and English version.

2) Would you like to work composing songs? Why?

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