Women composers steal the show at the Southbank Centre and the Barbican

Six years ago, when Chi-chi Nwanoku founded Chineke!, she says she could not have imagined starting a concert with two works by black, women composers. The world has changed and classical music has been swept along in the wake of political and social upheaval.

For an orchestra that is not full-time, Chineke! is making a deep impact. The original aim of creating an orchestra made up of mostly black and ethnically diverse players has expanded to take in Chineke! Juniors and the forthcoming Chineke! Beginners’ Orchestra, a communal project which will give children, parents and others the opportunity to play music together under professional supervision.

They might set their sights on Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s Blush, a fun piece which opened this concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, following its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in July. The other new piece was Valerie Coleman’s Phenomenal Women, a concerto for wind quintet, which was having its first UK performance. The title is taken from Maya Angelou and each of the six characterful movements celebrates the accomplishments of a notable woman, including Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, and Angelou herself. The very idea of a concerto for wind quintet is novel and each of the five instruments, played here by the Imani Winds ensemble, gets its own diverting spot in the limelight.

The surprise came after the interval with Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Sinfonietta No 1. Dating from 1954, this is a first-rate piece, part Bartok, part Britten, that does not waste a note, and yet the composer is almost wholly neglected. Chineke! and its conductor, Leslie Suganandarajah, gave the piece life and energy, as they did Beethoven’s Symphony No 8 afterwards.

★★★★☆

If the search is on for neglected women composers, look no further than Dora Pejacevic. Insofar as the music of this Croatian composer (1885-1923) is known at all, it is for her Symphony in F sharp minor, Op 41, not a masterpiece, but blazing music by any description.

It was the typically adventurous choice of the BBC Symphony Orchestra for its most recent concert at the Barbican. In the first world war Pejacevic served as a nurse tending wounded soldiers in her home town of Nasice; her furious composition of this symphony, written in 1916-17, formed a safety valve for her feelings.

It is not, however, grim or tragic or sad. This is a full-blown, romantic extravaganza, ear-batteringly noisy, tuneful and flamboyant, as if Dvorak and Richard Strauss have met in the middle of a war zone and are trying to outdo each other in extravagant musical gestures. It must be huge fun to play, especially for the big guns of the brass section who do not get a minute’s rest, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo gave it their best. Errol Flynn could have romped on film to swashbuckling music like this. If any Hollywood movie mogul is looking for a grand, romantic soundtrack, here is one ready-made.

★★★★☆

southbankcentre.co.uk; barbican.org.uk