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Illuminate Women's Music project
Illuminate is a project to promote the work of emerging women composers and performers. It also gives a platform for historical repertoire by women composers to sit alongside new works. The project has been set up by Dr Angela Elizabeth Slater in 2017, a freelance composer who is a strong advocate of the promotion of women’s music both past and present. The project continues with the support of fellow composers Blair Boyd and Sarah Westwood.
Aims of Illuminate touring concert series
Each season we plan to host different performers in residence and create new commissions for female composers as well as seeking out more historical repertoire by women composers for our concerts.
- To provide opportunities for living women composers to have their work performed, particularly focusing on emerging composers.
- To provide a platform for emerging women performers
- To promote the enjoyment and appreciation of the womens' music of today and from the past to new audiences across the UK.
Each season we plan to host different performers in residence and create new commissions for female composers as well as seeking out more historical repertoire by women composers for our concerts.
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Founder, Artistic Director and Composer in residence - Dr Angela Elizabeth Slater
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Director of Illuminate Scotland and Composer in residence - Dr Ruta Vitkauskaite
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Dr. Angela Elizabeth Slater is a UK-based composer, whose compositional voice focuses on musically mapping aspects of the natural world into the fabric of music. Nominated for an Ivors Classical Award for her work, Through the Fading Hour, her music has been described as ‘intricate...and often ravishingly scored’ and making ‘deft and vivid use of instrumental colour’.. Slater collaborates with performers, ensembles, and initiatives worldwide to musically explore sounds, colours, and textures.
Her work The Louder the Birds Sing received its Dutch premiere by Residentie Orkest den Haag after being selected as the winner Gaudeamus’s orchestral category. Slater’s recent creative projects include fellowships at the Modern-Music Festival,; Hong Kong Intimacy of Creativity Festival, working with the Viano Quartet on Distorted Light; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, for a commission of Where skies aflame; and Creative Dialogues Festival, for the world premiere of a tulip, iron. She has previously held Composition Fellowships at Tanglewood Music Center, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Society to name a few and also been in Mendelssohn Scholarship Award. In 2024-2025 she is looking forward to a number of exciting performances and commissions including performances of Karmen line for symphony orchestra, Orbits edge for chamber ensemble, and This is Jane mini opera scene for 2 sopranos and piano as part of her compositional fellowship at Aspen Music Festival. She is also enjoying working on her work Mountains become Oceans concerto for harp and percussion which is due to be premiered by Amarillo Symphony Orchestra with conductor George Jackson, harpist Rosanna Moore and percussionist Hannah Weaver on 28th February and 1st March 2025. https://www.angelaslatercomposer.co.uk/ |
Rūta Vitkauskaitė is a composer of concert music: her ensemble and orchestral compositions have been awarded numerous prizes and performed in festivals including Apeldoorn, Sound (UK), Gaudeamus, Operadagen (NL), Nordbeg, Halland (SE), Gaida, NOA (LT), Q-O2 (BE), SUSA (DK), broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, Deutschlandradio Kultur, Lithuanian Radio and TV. Her music has been performed by outstanding ensembles and orchestras in UK and Europe, including BBC Singers, Manchester Collective, Ensemble 360, Ligeti Quartet, Kaleidoscope, Apartment House, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Martynas Levickis, Rakhi Singh, Jonathan Powell, and many others.
Part of her practice is dedicated to collaborative music creation and inter-disciplinary projects: her collaborative electro-acoustic opera for blind-folded audience, Confessions (Spatial Opera Company), was awarded Golden Stage Cross and toured across Lithuania, Sweden and EU with over 50 shows to date. Ruta has a PhD in Composition from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and in 2024 she was received Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) honour. In 2021, she was recipient of theestigious Royal Philharmonic Society composers' scheme, and is multiple winner of Lithuanian Composers' Union Best Composition of the Year. Her current project 'Modern Chants' exploring onomatopoeia in ancient folk music, was shortlisted for Scottish Awards for New Music 2023. Rūta's music is published by Composers Edition. Rūta is a passionate advocate for spreading new music to young people and wider communities. Since moving to Scotland, she initiated CoMA, Contemporary Music for All, Glasgow branch, of which she is Music Director, and in 2023 was appointed as Deputy Director at Sound Festival (Aberdeen). Rūta is a Lecturer in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. |
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Co-director, and composer in residence Blair Boyd
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Co-director, Finance Officer and composer in residence Sarah Westwood
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We need your support!
Below you can support current and future Illuminate seasons and activities. We need your support to continue the work we do in shining a light on the work of women composers from both the past in present. Illuminate Women's Music is voluntary led by our composers in residence and we need your help and support in continuing this wonderful and vital work.
