Voices Of Women In Time For Suffrage Day 2020

As we approach Suffrage Day on 19 September, aligning this year with NZ’s General Election, it is timely that composer Janet Jennings has released an album of new music celebrating exactly this. Voices of Women features leading NZ female musicians, singing the words of some of NZ’s most well-known female leaders, writers and activists including, of course, Kate Sheppard, and our current Prime Minister. Described by one reviewer as “an exemplary performance, by and of women, full of sound and pleasure,” the album is available now from Marbeck’s in Auckland or online.

In creating Voices of Women, composer Janet Jennings has set to music words spoken and written by a range of iconic women. The project brought together a team of exceptional female musicians including one of NZ’s few professional marimba players, Yoshiko Tsuruta, well known percussionist Rachel Thomas, violinist Maia Dean Martin, and leading pianists Katherine Austin, Rachel Fuller, Noelle Dannenbring and Maria Mo.

The album opens with a new musical setting of The Magnificat. Mary’s song of praise is the longest New Testament text attributed to a woman, but was, of course, written by a man. Jennings describes the text as “troubling because the image of Mary has pervaded our culture and formed a guiding – and restricting – principle for female conduct”. Musical settings of poetry by Christina Rossetti, Ursula Bethell and Jean Alison Bartlett form the body of the album. The lives of these three leading writers and thinkers spanned a period of 170 years. The poems reveal their preoccupations and concerns providing delightful moments of humour and moments of reflection.

The album is completed by the title work, Voices of Women, in which Jennings sets to music texts by Kate Sheppard, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ākenehi Tōmoana and Jacinda Ardern. The work begins with words from one of Kate Sheppard’s most influential speeches of 1892. A poem follows, by American feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1911, that wittily summarises the arguments faced by those who fought for suffrage; her fellow countrywomen did not gain the right to vote for another nine years. The words of Ākenehi Tōmoana, a prominent Māori leader of chiefly status, advocate the inclusion of women in decision making. Kate Sheppard’s words of 19 September 1893, when the Electoral act was signed into law, are followed by the words of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, speaking in parliament on the 19th September 2018, as New Zealanders celebrated 125 years of female suffrage in New Zealand.

The texts are sung by a stellar line-up of NZ vocalists that includes Stephanie Acraman, Mere Boynton, Catrin Johnsson, Jayne Tankersley and Felicity Tomkins, in an ensemble conducted by Rachael Griffiths-Hughes.

Dr Janet Jennings is one of NZ’s leading composers for voice, and also writes for a wide range of instrumental groups. Her music is played internationally and throughout New Zealand, and her works often air on Radio NZ’s concert programme. Voices of Women is her second album released under the Atoll label, the previous album being Play-Pen, released in 2019.

Voices of Women is available now at Marbeck’s Auckland store or online, and is expected to be released for download on a range of digital sites soon, including Amazon, Spotify and 7Digital.

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