The formidable and determined Ethel Smyth forged her own path through late-nineteenth century society: according to History Today the "suffragette songstress [...] made no secret of her fondness for cricket, cigar smoking and bisexual relationships". Defying her family, she studied music at Leipzig Conservatory, returning to England in 1890. Orchestral works including the dramatic Mass in D (1893) brought her wide public recognition. For the next decade or so she concentrated on a series of operas, of which the best known nowadays is The Wreckers.
From 1911 to 1913 Smyth was closely involved with the Suffragette movement: her composition The March of the Women was adopted as the movement's anthem. In 1912, while she was serving two months' imprisonment for breaking windows, when her friend Thomas Beecham visited, he found her conducting a lusty performance of The March of the Women by the inmates in the courtyard, conducting energetically from her cell window.
Recent years have seen a renewed interest in Smyth's work. In 2022 The Wreckers was included in the Glyndebourne Festival, and the Mass in D was performed at the BBC Proms.
The driving force behind this performance is conductor Helen Harrison, who has worked to bring women composers, both contemporary and past, to the fore, performing works by Amy Beach, Anne Appleton, Florence Price and indeed Smyth with ensembles including Blackpool Symphony Orchestra. Helen describes this performance as an important landmark in Lancashire's musical life, and has assembled a hand-picked orchestra, appropriately named after one of Lancashire's best-known landmarks, the highest point of the Forest of Bowland.