French Cellist Founds Record Label to Highlight Forgotten Female Composers

Héloïse Luzzati spent decades as a cellist immersed in the world of classical music, so she was shocked to realize she had never studied a piece from a female composer. The realization sent her on a path to remedy that, not only for herself but for all fellow musicians present and future.

Luzzati started about two years ago with YouTube videos featuring the music of long-forgotten and sometimes unpublished women composers, and then founded a festival near Paris for people to perform it live. Most recently, she launched a record label dedicated to “[exhuming] pieces that seem worthy of a good position in the standard musical repertoire,” she told NPR.

The label, La Boîte à Pépites (The Jewel Box), had its first release in the U.K. in September. It highlighted the work of Charlotte Sohy, who published music under her grandfather’s name or the abbreviated Ch. Sohy to escape discrimination before her death in 1955.

“We want this music to exist for the future and for the young generations too,” Luzzati said. “We don’t want to rewrite the story of the music. We want to add the women who count in the story.”

Click the video below to listen!