Birmingham Conservatoire graduate Joanna Lee talks to Christopher Morley about her new commission for the Orchestra of the Swan.

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Born in Beccles, East Suffolk - not far from Benjamin Britten-land - in 1982, Joanna Lee already has an impressive clutch of successes as a composer under her belt.

Currently studying for a PhD at Birmingham Conservatoire specialising in vocal composition, she has heard her works performed to great acclaim by such star musicians as Jane Manning (and her Minstrels), Sarah Leonard, Psappha, CoMA and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Next Tuesday at Birmingham Town Hall the Orchestra of the Swan will give the premiere of her Chansons Innocentes, settings for soprano and small orchestra of poems by e e cummings. Jane Manning is the soloist in this "American Dreams" programme conducted by David Curtis, which also includes Samuel Barber's haunting Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Copland's Music for the Movies, and the same composer's heart-warming Appalachian Spring.

Speaking from her parents' home in Beccles, Joanna tells me how she lived in Birmingham city centre for four years while studying as an undergraduate at the Conservatoire then took a year out and returned to Suffolk.

"And then my boyfriend got a job as a civil engineer in Tamworth, so I came back there and returned to the Conservatoire for further studies."

Is the boyfriend musical?

"No, he's not, but his dad is Scottish, and plays the bagpipes very well."

Joanna Lee first came to my notice when her Pierrot!, a brilliant take on Schoenberg's seminal Pierrot Lunaire, was performed at the Adrian Boult Hall by Jane Manning and her Minstrels in 2006. She obviously has a great interest in writing for the voice.

"Yes, definitely. I trained as a singer when I was younger. I started singing lessons when I was 14. I'd always sung at the piano anyway.

"I got Grade 8 distinction when I was 18, and took singing as a second study when I was at college.

"I never actually wanted to be a singer - I think I was too shy! But just exploring the voice..."

And she has had the privilege of working with some pretty classy singers, headed by Manning and Leonard.

"I've been very, very lucky, for my age," she chuckles. "I met Jane through SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music), when I had my piece Your Little Voice for solo soprano short-listed, and I also met Sarah Leonard through that, too.

"And Sarah is now helping me to understand how to write for the voice. She's a very nice lady, too. And through her I've had the chance to work with contemporary instrumental groups."

Joanna's commission from Orchestra of the Swan came about through its links with Joe Cutler, head of composition at Birmingham Conservatoire.

"I was put forward by Joe. The idea was initially for an orchestral piece, but I suggested my chief interest was vocal music, and they thought that was a wonderful idea, so it turned into a piece for soprano and orchestra, to go along with the orchestration of Knoxville and Appalachian Spring."

Does Joanna Lee perceive a "glass ceiling" for women composers?

"In my fourth year as an undergraduate I did an essay on why there are so few female composers. I'm not sure that the glass ceiling has been broken through.

In some ways people make assumptions about me. Silly things like, because I'm quite feminine-looking and stuff, they can't accept it when my music is quite loud and aggressive: 'We wouldn't have expected you to write that kind of thing', they say.

"I haven't met many female composers, so I feel it's very much a male-dominated scene.

"I've started having lessons with the composer Judith Weir this year. It's really nice to be able to work with someone so down-to-earth and very unassuming.

"I think that's why I really enjoy working with singers like Jane and Sarah as well, because I really get that female perspective.

"It might sound terrible, but the majority of my teachers have all been male, and on courses as well it does tend to be male-led."

Does this mean that Joanna feels a bit lonely at times?

"I suppose in a way - it's perhaps again a terrible thing to say, but socially I'm just a normal girl, and I write shopping-lists and that kind of thing, but I haven't found many girls who are like that in the composing world. I shouldn't say things like that, should I?"

* The Orchestra of the Swan plays Joanna Lee's Chansons Innocentes at Birmingham Town Hall on Tuesday (7.30pm). Details on 0121 780 3333.