09/07/2019
The street sold paper The Big Issue, which incidentally has a long history of covering LGBT issues fairly and supportively, says that there has been a sea change this year in the world of classical music. Women are finally being recognised in the long tradition of classical works. Rebecca Saunders, a renowned contemporary composer, has won the prestigious Ernst Von Siemens prize, the first female to do so. Previous winners of the prize include the legendary Benjamin Britten. In addition, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla has also so far this year become the first female conductor to sign a contract with a classical music label deemed to be “iconic” by the Big Issue, namely the Deutsche Grammophon label. Mirga is the music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orhcestra. We should note that many LGBT people find solace in classical music and will be pleased that a traditionally male bastion is opening up in the twenty first century. Only this year, a new national digital radio channel, called Scala Radio, has started broadcasting a modernist approach to classical music, aimed at capturing the attention of young and dynamic people. It joins the more established classical broadcaster Classic FM and BBC Radio Three, each of whom also has a sizeable gay and trans audience.
