WOW is so excited to announce it has commissioned multi-award winning composer Errollyn Wallen CBE to compose a new choral piece to celebrate WOW's 15th anniversary. The piece will receive its world premiere on International Women’s Day as part of WOW at 15 at the Royal Albert Hall. The piece for choir and organ is a celebration of women, girls and non-binary people everywhere, with music and lyrics inspired by the work of WOW.

A major highlight of WOW’s 15th anniversary year, WOW at 15 will celebrate the significant impact WOW has made shifting the dial on gender equity, and look to the future to discuss the urgent challenges that still need to be overcome. WOW Founder Jude Kelly CBE will lead this huge celebration with an evening of big ideas and conversations, laughter, joy, stories, music and performance. Legendary activist Angela Davis will make a rare UK appearance as one of the event headliners in a conversation with Jude Kelly honouring her life and achievements, alongside a bill of world-class speakers, activists and artists with further guests to be announced.

Opening the event, the choral commission will be performed by an intergenerational choir made up of 150 women, girls and non-binary people aged between eight and 80 years from Mulberry School for Girls, St Boniface School and Lips, a London based trans-inclusive women’s choir.

One of the most performed living composers of classical music in the world, Errollyn Wallen is a celebrated composer and performer with a prolific output that spans orchestral, chamber and vocal works. Groundbreaking in the history of classical music, Wallen was the first living female composer and first Black woman to have a work featured in the BBC Proms, as well as the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello award for Classical Music.

Errollyn Wallen says: “I am delighted to be part of WOW 15 and honoured to be contributing a new work that celebrates WOW’s commitment to gender equity across the world. I look forward to sharing a musical moment of powerful solidarity and energy with the audience in the astonishing Royal Albert Hall.”

The evening will also feature the world premiere of a newly commissioned fanfare for the Royal Albert Hall’s 153-year-old 9,999 pipe organ written by award-winning composer Isobel Waller-Bridge and performed by renowned organist, conductor, broadcaster and composer Anna Lapwood.

WOW at 15 will be the first of several events in 2025 marking WOW’s 15th anniversary, with further details being announced in the new year.

Tickets for WOW at 15 start from £20 with 200 £10 tickets allocated for community and school groups.

The WOW Choral Commission is made possible with support from the Richard Attenborough Charitable Trust. With thanks to support from The Julia Rausing Trust and public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.