An Audience with Gabriella Di Laccio

In this lecture-recital, soprano, TED speaker, and PhD researcher Gabriella Di Laccio explores this question through both research and live performance.

As founder of the Donne Foundation, she brings together data, artistic practice, and advocacy to examine how gender inequality is shaped and sustained across the music industry.

Drawing on her ongoing doctoral research at York St John University, Gabriella shares how performance can challenge bias, how data can influence decision-making, and how collective action can drive change.

The evening continues with a live recital of works by women composers, offering audiences a direct encounter with music that has too often been overlooked.

BIOS

Gabriella Di Laccio MBE is a multi-award-winning soprano, TED speaker, and PhD researcher at York St John University. She is the founder of the Donne Foundation, a UK-based organisation advancing gender equality in the music industry through research, performance, and advocacy. Listed as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2018, Gabriella has established an international profile as both an artist and an advocate.

Her work focuses on the underrepresentation of women composers. She leads the Equality & Diversity in Global Repertoire Report, a major international research project analysing orchestral programming, and created the Let HER MUSIC Play campaign, which achieved a Guinness World Record and brought global attention to music by women and non-binary composers.

Alongside her research, she maintains an active international performing career, using the stage to bring greater visibility to music by women composers. In June 2025, she was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to music and gender equality.

Richard Leach has performed at major venues including Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St James’s Piccadilly, and St Bride’s Fleet Street, and has appeared on BBC Radio 3. He has worked as a répétiteur with The Grange Festival, the Monteverdi Choir, the Philharmonia Chorus, and The English Concert, and performs regularly with the English Baroque Choir and The Music Makers Choir of Harpenden.

In 2025, he gave the UK concert première of Kashperova’s Second Cello Sonata with cellist Maria Zachariadou and the Donne Foundation. He has coached at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music.

Alongside his performing work, Richard has given organ recitals at The Queen’s and Magdalen Colleges, Oxford, and at Canterbury Cathedral. He studied at Oxford, Cambridge, and the Royal Academy of Music.