Opus 1: Listen to me, here I am! As a Firstling, I want to go public, I want to be printed, played, understood and appreciated. What came before me no longer counts. I lead a life of my own and stand at the beginning of my further development.

After its first performance, Opus 1 attracts more than academic interest. Most of the time, it already has considerable artistic value, like the works by eight female composers from six countries that are brought together here.

Kathrin Schmidlin has specialised in the performance of little-known female composers. In 2017, for example, she performed Fanny Hensel’s complete piano cycle Das Jahr at the Museum am Dom in Trier. For the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth in 2019, she performed her Piano Concerto in A minor several times as a soloist, and in spring 2021 her debut CD Frauenstimmen was released, which she recorded together with cellist Anna Fortova to mark the 50th anniversary of Swiss women’s suffrage. Her CD with works by female composers has been repeatedly acclaimed by the international specialist press.