Risk-Taking, My Way

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Today was the final day of the Women and Musical Histories conference at the Royal Academy of Music.  It has been both enjoyable, and highly informative, and there was enough live music to make it feel like a real treat.  Presentations and performances alike were of a very high quality.

My presentation was in the final session, so I had two days of debating with myself as to whether I’d play that musical example.

PROS

  • It would quite possibly be the first performance since the 1940s, if not before.
  • No-one will have heard Rose’s music before
  • It’s lovely
  • It has THE most wonderful, powerful ending.

CONS

  • I once played a simple example (on home ground), made a tiny slip, and someone sniggered.
  • I’m a scholar, not ‘a performer’.
  • Dare I reveal my shortcomings within the hallowed walls of another conservatoire?

I had brought a scanned copy of Rose Smith’s last verse, as a precaution against losing it in transit.  Since I may have the only privately-owned copy, I couldn’t risk bringing it with me.  This turned out to have been a wise precaution,  because a torrential downpour rendered my scanned copy very soggy round the edges!  Nonetheless, it dried out enough that I couldn’t use the sogginess as an excuse.

I heard someone warming up for a lecture recital, and almost took fright.  Who did I think I was?!!

‘Tell the audience you were a librarian’, a friend advised me. Well, that was a better idea than confessing that I didn’t rate myself very highly.  I know better than to put an audience off by sowing seeds of doubt in their minds!

Finally, I convinced myself.  A bit like when I was deciding whether to have another go at a PhD, back in 2003, I asked myself the question that usually helps me make up my mind.

Will I regret it if I don’t do this?

I took a deep breath. ‘I used to be a librarian, not a performer’, I stated. ‘But I’m going to play you an example of Rose’s music.’

It was an absolutely fabulous piano! Quite exhilarating.

An Appropriate Coffee-cup …

International Women’s Day: Rose Smith (and Marjory Kennedy-Fraser)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The beginning bars of The Road to the Isles, in a piano arrangement by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser.

This has become a two-post day? Well, it’s International Women’s Day. How can I not mention it?

I decided I would play music by women this morning. Rose Smith (one of the women I recently wrote about in the RMA Research Chronicle – you’ll be familiar with her name by now!) was a piano teacher, a composer, and an Episcopalian organist. She was born in Lanark, moved to Glasgow whilst still a child, and later lived with her husband and children in Rutherglen. Her composed songs were rather like those by Ivor Novello – I’ve acquired nearly all of what seems to be extant, but I think a lot is missing. She only self-published a few, and the rest – for variety show singers – may not even have been published at all.

There’s no surviving organ music, so there was nothing for it – I played her songs before morning worship today. I bet you she never played them in church! However, since no-one knew they were secular songs, there was no harm in it. They’re well-written pieces, and I do think it’s a shame they’re not known. I did recommend one to an RCS Finalist a few years ago, and it was performed with enjoyment and appreciation.

I have significant performance anxiety about recording my playing, but I did unearth a piano demo of three songs by Rose Smith, that I recorded for a student a few years ago. Be kind! This isn’t a perfect performance or a perfect recording, but does show how the songs go.

Quick piano demo of three songs by Rose Smith

For my outgoing voluntary today, I turned to a more well-known composer. I played Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s Eriskay Love Song, followed by The Road to the Isles.

Applause

I scored! I don’t usually get a round of applause after a voluntary.

I’ve got a new book of proper organ voluntaries by women composers, so I really must roll up my sleeves and learn some of them, but I suspect The Road to the Isles will prove hard to beat, as far as audience reaction goes …

Proud Addition to my Published Output: Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Edwardian lady and two little girls. Picture has a floral border.

Published online today, 12 January 2026, in the RMA (Royal Musical Association) Research Chronicle, by Cambridge University Press, on Open Access:- click here.

Writing this article was enormously fulfilling. I had encountered these ladies whilst researching my latest monograph, and I became convinced that they deserved profiling in their own right, and not merely as bit-parts in the larger picture occupied by their husbands, fathers and brothers.

The kernel of the abstract states that, ‘This article focuses on a group of Scottish women who did not make their names solely as art music composers or stellar performers, and for whom piano teaching was only part of their musical work. Four were related to the Scottish music publishers Mozart Allan, James Kerr, and the Logan brothers; the fifth published with Allan and Kerr, and also self-published.’

And all had fulfilling portfolio musical careers. Read on, and I’m sure you’ll agree!