New French record label to focus on neglected women composers of the past

“A new record label devoted to releasing music by forgotten women composers will be launched this September,” writes Hannah Nepilova in Tuesday’s (7/26) BBC Music (U.K.). “Founded by cellist Héloïse Luzzati, La Boîte à Pépites launches on 30 September with its debut album: a 3-CD boxset of the complete works by Charlotte Sohy [1887-1955]. This will be followed, in 2023, with a CD of music by Rita Strohl [1865-1942], with many other women in the pipeline, including the British composers Liza Lehmann [1862-1918], Alice Mary Smith [1839-1884] and Adela Maddison [1862-1929]. The record label forms one part of the ‘Elles: Women Composers’ project—devised by Luzzati—which began with the creation of the ‘Un Temps pour Elles’ music Festival in France and was soon followed by the YouTube channel ‘La Boîte à Pépites’ which today contains more than 60 videos, from animated documentaries to a video advent calendar. The aim behind it all, according to Luzzati, is ‘to exhume pieces that seemed worthy of a good position in the standard musical repertoire’—many of which have never been recorded or have been lost over time.”