13/10/2026
🇬🇧 You give an important place to women composers and lesser-known repertoire in your recitals: what draws you to this approach?
“Women composers were initially missing from my early years of study; in music history classes, over two years of the program, I didn’t hear about a single one (we were only told that Felix Mendelssohn had a sister, F***y, and Robert Schumann a wife, Clara). But I have a taste for research, I love digging, and in this case especially after hearing my theory teacher’s argument: that women composers, in his view, had had no influence on musical writing.
So starting in my Bachelor’s, I began taking an interest in Alma Mahler, because I love her fin-de-siècle aesthetic. Then, when I met the pianist who is today my duo partner, Léa Lefèvre, we immediately talked about our shared curiosity for works by women composers and put together programs, which notably allowed us to perform live on Radio Suisse Romande and make an entirely female recital heard during prime listening hours.
The work of exploring the repertoire of women composers is booming, and much more developed than it was even four or five years ago. It’s an absolutely necessary process, and I’m glad to see a canon beginning to form, where certain pieces are (rightfully) establishing themselves as masterpieces. I’m thinking, for example, of Rita Strohl’s Chants de Bilitis, which have already been recorded twice, of Mel Bonis’s Femmes de légende, or of Dora Pejačević’s Symphony in F-sharp minor.
For voice, one of my favorite works is Marie Jaëll’s cycle of 5 Lieder, which is an absolute masterpiece, but which isn’t yet really recognized as such. One of my dreams is to record it and commit to disc the interpretation Léa Lefèvre and I have been working on for nearly two years now.”
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F***y Utiger
photo : © Angéline Moizard
