Professor Shirley Thompson OBE, Head of Music Research at the University of Westminster, was nominated for the prestigious Woman of the Year Award at the 2023 Women of the Year Lunch and Awards event, which celebrated more than 400 women from the UK who have made a significant impact throughout the year.
Women of the Year is a not-for-profit organisation run by a committee of volunteers, whose aim is to continue the legacy of Tony Lothian, the Italian-born British aristocrat, journalist and writer, by recognising, celebrating, and advancing the achievements of women throughout the United Kingdom and around the world.
The annual Women of the Year Lunch and Awards event champions women from all walks of life and each guest is nominated by a member of the Women of the Year Nominating Council in recognition of their personal achievement or inspiration, attending the gathering as a Woman of the Year.
During this year’s event, which took place on 16 October at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, Professor Thompson was given a special mention by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, President of the organisation, for her operatic work, especially her opera Women of the Windrush, which is the main feature in the Women of the Year 2023 magazine.
The opera is from Professor Thompson's ground-breaking series, Heroines of Opera, and portrays inspirational narratives from the lives of a variety of women settlers who travelled to the UK from the West Indies from the late 1940s through to the early 1970s. This was the period in which persons from the West Indies were invited by the British government to assist in the rebuilding of post-war Britain.
Based on Professor Thompson’s original award-winning film, Memories in Mind: Women of the Windrush Tell Their Stories, archive film and video projection interweave the compelling stories from a cricketer’s wife, a student nurse, a concert pianist and a new bride who all relate their experiences of arriving and settling in England.
Professor Thompson is a prominent composer and artistic director who has massively influenced and contributed to several spheres of music and the arts. She was named as “one of the most inspirational women of colour” by the Metro newspaper and one of her most recent achievements is that she was personally commissioned by His Majesty King Charles III to compose music for the Coronation in May 2023.
In 2018, she was awarded an OBE for her services to music at Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year Honours Awards, and in 2019 she was awarded a Professorship of Music at Westminster, becoming the first person of African heritage to be made a University Professor of Music in Europe. Due to her work, she was has been named in the Top 100 Most Influential People of African, Caribbean and African American heritage every year from 2010 – 2024 and in the Top 10 twice.
About the nomination Professor Thompson said: “It is a huge honour to be nominated for Woman of the Year 2023 among my truly extraordinary fellow nominees from many fields of endeavour and global impact. I am especially honoured that my ground-breaking opera, Women of the Windrush, is the main feature in the Women of the Year souvenir magazine, honouring the 75th Year Anniversary of the Windrush. My 75th Anniversary Windrush UK Opera Tour for the Brave and Ingenious includes major venues around the country, including the Birmingham Hippodrome on 23 and 24 November 2023.”
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