Joanna Forbes L’Estrange is a multifaceted
musician who performs, composes, records,
directs and produces music in a wide variety of
genres. Her career began with seven years as
soprano and Musical Director of the five-time
Grammy® award-winning vocal group The
Swingles, with whom she toured the world and
produced six albums. Specialising in contemporary
crossover music, Joanna is a regular soloist for
Mass in Blue by Will Todd (which she recorded for
the Convivium label) and Duke Ellington’s Sacred
Concert. With the world’s leading orchestras and
contemporary music ensembles she performs
works by Steve Reich and Luciano Berio and has
sung on over 300 film soundtracks.
One of the Royal School of Church Music’s best-
selling composers, Joanna was commissioned to
compose an anthem to mark the coronation of
King Charles III. The Mountains Shall Bring Peace
was sung...
more
Joanna Forbes L’Estrange is a multifaceted
musician who performs, composes, records,
directs and produces music in a wide variety of
genres. Her career began with seven years as
soprano and Musical Director of the five-time
Grammy® award-winning vocal group The
Swingles, with whom she toured the world and
produced six albums. Specialising in contemporary
crossover music, Joanna is a regular soloist for
Mass in Blue by Will Todd (which she recorded for
the Convivium label) and Duke Ellington’s Sacred
Concert. With the world’s leading orchestras and
contemporary music ensembles she performs
works by Steve Reich and Luciano Berio and has
sung on over 300 film soundtracks.
One of the Royal School of Church Music’s best-
selling composers, Joanna was commissioned to
compose an anthem to mark the coronation of
King Charles III. The Mountains Shall Bring Peace
was sung by over 600 choirs around the world
including in the USA, South Africa, Australia,
New Zealand and throughout Europe and the UK.
Her music has been performed and recorded by
Tenebrae, The King’s Singers, The Swingles, The
Military Wives Choirs, The National Youth Choir
and London Voices. Television credits include
Fleabag, which featured her 1940s-style song
You Are, and Glee, which featured her Moonlight
Sonata arrangement, written for and recorded by
The Swingles.
Joanna has written many songs and choral pieces
in support of equal opportunities for women: We
Will Remember Them (for the Military Wives Choirs
of Great Britain), A Woman (Wearing Bloomers) On
A Wheel (made into a film by the National Youth
Girls’ Choir), Suffragette March (part of a larger
work, Freedom! The Power of Song, composed
in collaboration with her husband Alexander
L’Estrange), A place for us maids (commissioned
to mark 40 years of female undergraduates at
Trinity College, Cambridge), The Three Wise
Women (commissioned to mark the 135th
anniversary of St Swithun’s School, Winchester)
and Byrd Song (commissioned to mark the
400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd).
In 2018 Joanna founded the all-female vocal
group AQUILA and, in the same year, made
history by organising the fi rst-ever, all-female
recording session at Abbey Road Studios in London,
recording her single Twenty-fi rst-century Woman
for International Women’s Day.
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