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celebrating three hundred years of music by women |
The author - Diana Ambache 
Born in 1948, Diana started playing the piano aged 5, and soon discovered that playing with others was her greatest musical pleasure. She played her first Mozart Piano
Concerto at Sheffield University and went on to found the Ambache Chamber Orchestra in 1984 to play more of them. She ran the Orchestra for 24 years, played most of the Mozart
Concertos and recorded 8 of them, plus a good deal of his chamber music. In the course this, looking for other concertos, she stumbled upon an unknown Piano Concerto
by Germaine Tailleferre in 1985; she has also been researching, performing, recording and publicising music by women.A quarter of a century of exploring and performing this work led her to create this web site, to share her discoveries and encourage others to find out about this music. She has also told the stories of these pioneering women on broadcasts for BBC Radio and Classic fm. Other actions to spread the word have included giving some 40 premières, recording 8 new CDs, and making numerous radio broadcasts about the composers. She was short listed for the European Women of Achievement Awards 2002 for this range of activities. After inheriting a valuable violin, she founded the Ambache Charitable Trust in 2013, which is devoted to raising the profile of women composers, and makes grants to projects which bring this music to the widest possible audience; (see ambachecharitabletrust.org). With the oboist Jeremy Polmear, she toured internationally, performing in over 30 different countries on 5 continents. They have performed several programmes of words and music, working with actors such as Billy Whitelaw, Jenny Agutter and Janet Suzman. They have also run creativity workshops for the LBS, CUBS and various businesses. Other work has included being a specialist lecturer and tour guide on culture tours to European Festivals in Salzburg, Kuhmo, Trasimeno and Eisenstadt. In 2011 she trained as a teacher of English as a foreign language, and has taught in India, Peru and Laos. Some of the pieces she has unearthed have been issued by Hildegard Publishing and June Emerson Music. Contact e-mail: diana@ambache.co.uk
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