We're really excited to present the concert 'On an Endless Road' touring March 5-9. Before getting involved in the project we hadn't heard of the three Japanese women composers featured in the programme, and were so excited to be introduced to their work by curator and composer Francesca Le Lohé.

We asked her to tell you a little bit about them...

In March 2024, internationally-acclaimed Japanese biwa performer Akiko Kubota will be touring the UK with 'On an Endless Road: Itō Noe and the Women Composers of her Time', presented by Hera in assocation with Illuminate Women's Music. She will perform a new piece written for her by British composer Francesca Le Lohé.

As part of the tour, the Writing for Biwa workshop with Akiko and Francesca offers the unique opportunity for composers to engage with the biwa first-hand.

Can we, please?!

Two weeks ago, YouGov released a poll showing that 56% of adults in Great Britain consider the coronavirus pandemic to be ‘ongoing’ (as opposed to 34% who think it’s ‘over’).

Three mini commissions for composers & songwriters in Kent, Essex & East Sussex to write short pieces for voice, as part of Hera's new project 'Houseplants'.

Read on for all the details...

Do you live in Kent?

Would you like to be the subject of a (tiny) opera?

We formed Hera in 2018 and made our first work in 2019. In retrospect this wasn’t ideal timing. But we’ve kept going and we’ve been lucky. Currently we’re feeling moderately confident that we’ll be going for a little while to come, with ‘Out of Her Mouth’ - a co-production with Mahogany Opera and Dunedin Consort – set for summer 2023, and other projects in the pipeline.

So, a moment of reflection.

Every year, International Women’s Day gives the programming of women composers a boost, but I’m not the first to point out that the aim should be year-round balance. This year, Hera is delighted to have worked with SWAP’ra to programme Forgotten Voices for IWD. For a start, the festival is a week long. But more than that, the creation of a bank of recordings of previously unrecorded music will have a long-term impact, helping artists and organisations hear and connect with repertoire they may never have considered, before – we hope - programming it themselves.

Our brilliant Musical Director Lana Bode comes fresh from releasing her five-star (BBC Music Magazine) debut album with Marta Fontanals-Simmons - I and Silence: Women’s Voices in American Song, and we can't get enough - check it out on Spotify here (other music players are available...)

Our resident mezzo Linda Hirst will be joined for GENERATION by the wonderful Shakira Tsindos. It may be stormy October where we are, but let her transport you to a clear spring evening with Brahms' beautiful Die Mainacht:

We’ve met a whole host of wonderful performers over the past few weeks – thank you so much to everyone who got in touch about joining the GENERATION team. The talent and energy on show really blew us away, but sadly we could only afford to fit three more people in the tour bus.

Hi there. Welcome. Thanks for coming to our first blog.

We’d like to tell you a bit about why we’ve decided to be HERA.

2019 is an exciting time to be in the arts. Things that haven’t shifted very much in a long while are moving quickly. People are starting to expect to see all of our society reflected in the film, TV and theatre they watch. The arts world is starting to realise that there’s an opportunity for creative renewal in letting more people in.