Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates International Women's Day

Tickets are available from the Brighton Dome and range from £13-£40, with concessions available. BPO are offering children up to 18 years tickets at £1 with an accompanying adult. Visit www.brightonphil.org.uk for more information or www.brightondome.org for tickets.

Spokeswoman Gill Davies said: “Under the leadership of music director Joanna MacGregor, BPO performs vivid, exciting music by celebrated composers Meredith Monk, Nina Simone, Eleanor Alberga and Errollyn Wallen, as well as Florence Price’s recently-discovered Mississippi River Suite before welcoming talented singer, cellist and composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson to perform her own works.

“British Jamaican composer and pianist Eleanor Alberga is a huge presence in today’s music, with commissions for the Last Night of the Proms and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Her filigree Clouds was commissioned by London Contemporary Dance and deftly matches their scudding, drifting and storming.

“The concert’s title is inspired by the much-loved Belize-born British composer, pianist and singer Errollyn Wallen. Her magnificent Mighty River, written in 2007, explores themes of slavery and freedom, to mark the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.”

Quoting Amazing Grace at the beginning, gathering momentum like a river flowing to the sea, Errollyn writes: “It is as if the perpetual motion of the music, like water, like time, through its sheer momentum carries with it the cries and echoes of human hearts and voices, that are singing out of suffering, repentance, humility and hope.”

Gill added: “Our special guest for BPO’s milestone celebration is the award-winning composer, cellist and singer-songwriter Ayanna Witter-Johnson, coming from a generation of young black British musicians revolutionising the British cultural landscape. Ayanna has opened the MOBO awards, composed for the London Symphony Orchestra and performed alongside some of music’s biggest names including Anoushka Shankar, Courtney Pine, Andrea Bocelli and Peter Gabriel. Ayanna’s influences stretch from Bach to Nina Simone, from Stravinsky to Stevie Wonder.

“Born in Little Rock, Arkansas before the turn of the 20th century, the composer, pianist organist and teacher Florence Price was ground-breaking. In 1933 she was the first African American female composer to be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and her powerful and lyrical Mississippi River Suite was written the following year. Opening with a poetic evocation of the dawn, it sumptuously weaves together African-American spirituals and Mississippi River songs, in a richly romantic style.

“Brighton Philharmonic has a long history of strong female leadership. Molly Paley was the orchestra's first leader in 1925 when it was founded, and nearly a century on the orchestra's music director, leader and co-leader and are all women.”