PREVIEW – Ambache Chamber Orchestra
St John’s, Smith Square

IT’S about 10 years ago now that Grove – the people behind the definitive 20-volume Dictionary of Musicians – realised they had forgotten something and brought out a companion volume dedicated to women composers.
Some thanks for this belated reassessment must be due to the work of Diana Ambache, who lives in Upper Holloway, and the orchestra she founded 21 years ago, in part to promote the work of unjustly forgotten female composers.
Still, ask the average classical music enthusiast to name a few, they will likely flounder after Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, and many ill-founded preconceptions still linger.
“People will ask me, ‘What is music by women like?’” Diana tells me. “My reply is, ‘Well, what is music by men like?’ Nationality is much more audible than gender, as is the time in which the composer was writing.” Expanding her point, she tells me about the “sensuousness” of American Amy Beach (1867-1944), comparing her to Irish-born Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994), criticised in her day for writing music that was “too challenging and aggressive”.
Just because the Ambache Orchestra play a lot of music by women, it should not be thought they steer clear of male composers (nor is it an all-woman orchestra). Indeed, Diana will always name her beloved Mozart as the orchestra’s raison d’etre, and topping and tailing Tuesday’s 21st birthday concert are Mozart’s auspiciously numbered 21st piano concerto and symphony.
In between are two works by Fanny Mendelssohn, including the English premiere with soprano Sophia Michailidou of an aria – “a very melodramatic piece, full of sturm und drang,” says Diana.
Those who cannot make the concert should visit www.ambache.co.uk and see what they have been missing out on.