Katie Yap has just put the finishing programming touches to her third chamber music festival celebrating women in music. “It’s a joy to be working on a festival with a sense of mission,” she tells Limelight. “It generates its own energy somehow and it’s so exciting to be part of that.”

Staged in the historic Chapter House in Flinders Lane, this year’s three-day Music She Wrote series explores themes of women’s work, breaking with societal norms and expectations, and speaking with an authentic voice. Presented by Melbourne broadcaster 3MBS, it opens on 29 March.

Katie Yap. Photo © Grant Leslie Photography.

“3MBS has an established audience of what I would describe as traditional classical music lovers, but in this case, we’re able to branch out beyond that,” says Yap. “Over the past three years, we’ve found that our audience is young, very diversity conscious and politically engaged.”

The first of the Music She Wrote concerts brings together pianist Georgina Lewis and soprano Billie Tumarkin to present a program of songs by and about women, a selection that draw on classical, folk and contemporary musics ranging from Ukrainian art songs to contemporary Canadian minimalism.

The...