Annabel Bennett - New Classics (2023)

The English pianist and composer Annabel Bennett claims to have had to take a male pseudonym so that her works, which had been refused until then, were accepted and broadcast by English radio stations. For two years, she enjoyed success as Arthur Parker.

It's a story that, right now, lends a smile, a yellow, disturbing laugh, just as disturbing as this story told by 50-year-old pianist and composer Annabel Bennett, who recently revealed to the British daily The Times to have taken a male pseudonym so that his works are recognized in the world of classical music.

This is not a novelty, the world of classical music is a very gendered and predominantly male universe, women musicians, composers, conductors not being sufficiently represented and highlighted. If the trend is improving, as shown by the statistics for the year 2019 in the world of classical music published by the site Bachtrack a year ago, if there are more and more platforms like Ask Clara or Donne, Women in music who work to better highlight the work of female composers past and present, the experience of Annabel Bennett demonstrates once again that there is still a lot of effort to be done so that women can be recognized and judged for their talent, and only their talent without any consideration for their sex.

Annabel Bennett has been writing music since she was very young and in 2012 she composed her first scores, composing some 350 works over the years. After having received several refusals from radio stations, the composer decided in 2018 to present her works under the guise of a male pseudonym. She will henceforth be called Arthur Parker, in homage to her father, instrumentalist and producer, Tom Arthur Parker. And the result is clear: Annabel Bennett affirms that it is thanks to this male surname that her works have been seen opening the doors of the British airwaves.

"I spent several months submitting my work to the BBC under my own name without success," she told The Times. "But as soon as I sent him as a man, I got noticed."

Statements denied by the BBC radio channel, defending itself from any discrimination by telling the Daily Mail: "This is totally false. We played a number of his songs on our local stations while the artist was using his original name and reject any suggestion of music selection for any reason other than merit."

This "deception" will last two years, during which Arthur Parker, crowned with success, sees the requests for interviews multiply. In order not to reveal her "true identity", Annabel Bennett refuses any telephone interview and only communicates by email. Today, Annabel Bennett comes out of the shadow of her male surname, on the occasion of the release of her album.

“We need to be judged on our music, not our genre, she says. I hope female composers start to be taken more seriously. definitely a man's world."

It's a story that echoes so many other artists, novelists, musicians of the 19th and 20th centuries who had to hide their gender to be recognized for their talent, let's think of Amantine Aurore Dupin who published a large part of her work under the name of George Sand or even the Brontë sisters who published their first work under the male pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell…