Dame Shirley J Thompson: Women of Windrush

Through mesmerising instrumental music and song, multi-award-winning composer Shirley J Thompson’s opera, Women of the Windrush, portrays inspirational narratives from the lives of a variety of women who travelled to the UK from the West Indies (1940s – 1960s).

Archive film and video projection interweave 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. Charismatic and versatile lyric soprano, Nadine Benjamin, embodies the essence of the settlers’ experiences in this operatic re- imagining of Shirley J Thompson’s original film, Memories in Mind (1992).