Talk:Shirley Thompson (composer)

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"Thompson became the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the past 40 years..

Just to let anyone interested know that I took out this claim, which is demonstrably untrue. Because it was claimed (twice) on the Wikipedia page, it continues to appear just about every review, article or social media post (particularly Twitter), whenever Shirley J Thompson is mentioned. I believe the claim originally came from blurb written by the composer's publishers (where it is still in place - https://shirleythompsonmusic.com/pages/about/) but it has been insufficiently researched. It has since been repeated by many other sources, including the one shown above. I have corresponded directly via email with Ms Thompson (an academic who is fully aware of the history of women in music) and she did not defend the claim at all.

Ruth Gipps composed and conducted her Symphony No 5, op. 64 in 1983. Judith Bailey conducted her own symphonies with the Southampton Concert Orchestra. Other UK symphonies composed by women that preceded New Nation Rising (2004) in the previous 40 years (sometimes conducted by the composers) include Minna Keal (1988), Margaret Lucy Wilkins (1989), Sally Beamish (1992), Diana Burrell (1995-6) and Errollyn Wallen (2004, and 2008). I'm certain that there are many other examples from the rest of Europe that I haven't researched.

Why is this important? I believe it underplays the contribution of other women composers to contemporary music. Recently there has been a major effort to re-discover women composers ignored for many years, and while that's encouraging, there's still a lot more work to be done. --Sfjohna (talk) 09:17, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Looking more closely at this article, felt I should also take out this claim. "Thompson was the first woman to compose and direct music for a major drama series at the British Broadcasting Corporation". This ignores the career of Elizabeth Poston who composed many scores for radio and television productions – over 40 for radio alone – and collaborated with C. S. Lewis, Dylan Thomas, and other writers on BBC productions. She wrote the score for the 1970 BBC television production of Howards End (broadcast on 26 December 1970 as Play of the Month). Again, I believe there are other examples as well, but not had time to research them as yet. The articles used to source these quotes all seem to be derived from promotional material issued by publishers or agents.--Sfjohna (talk) 10:53, 17 July 2020 (UTC)