In the lead up to International Women’s Day, students from Durham University Keyboard Instrument Society and Chamber Music Society perform music for piano, chamber ensemble and choir by Durham alumna Ailsa Dixon (1932–2017) along with a discussion led by her daughter Josie and members of the Music Department.

Ailsa Dixon studied music at Durham in the 1950s, but only a handful of her works were performed in her lifetime, until in 2017 her anthem These Things Shall Be was chosen for premiere as part of a project to highlight the work of female composers. It received its first performance in the spectacular glass-roofed concert hall surrounding the keel of the Cutty Sark ship, 30 years after it was written and just five weeks before she died. This was the beginning of a revival of her music, including a number of posthumous premieres, and by 2020 she was on the cover of the British Music Magazine. Her works have since been performed in venues from the Queen Elizabeth Hall to the Orkney International Festival and broadcast in America.

Read more here in this guest post and concert preview by Josie Dixon

Free entry, but booking is required
The concert will be held in Kenworthy Hall at St Mary’s College