Hannah Peel

The F-List for Music is delighted to announce that award-winning, genre defying musician and composer Hannah Peel is our 4th President.

Hannah takes on the baton from classical composer Professor Shirley J Thompson who was herself preceded by Brix Smith and Anoushka Shankar. The Presidential role is an important honorary role that allows high profile musicians gain support and awareness for the exceptional work of The F-List for Music.

The F-List for Music was set up in the midst of the pandemic as a vital support network for women and non-binary musicians. Despite repeated research and statistics demonstrating need this is the only national-wide organisation supporting women and gender diverse musicians across all genres of music in the UK.

Hannah Peel is a Northern Irish artist, composer, producer and radio presenter. Her solo record career includes the shortlisted 2021 Mercury Music Prize album, Fir Wave; Awake But Always Dreaming, and the space-themed Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, scored for synthesisers and a 30 piece colliery brass band. Following her Emmy-nominated score for Game Of Thrones: The Last Watch, her soundtrack for TV thriller, The Deceived won a 2022 Royal Television Society NI award and the Music Producer’s Guild’s best ‘Original Score Recording of 2021’. This year Hannah won the Best Television Soundtrack category in The Ivor Novello Awards for The Midwich Cuckoos. A regular collaborator with Paul Weller, she contributed arrangements to his no.1 album’s On Sunset and Fat Pop and last year released The Unfolding with Paraorchestra, the world’s only disabled and non-disabled integrated orchestra which went straight to No.1 in the UK Classical Charts. Hannah says…

I am proud to be the next President for The F-list!

From starting out as a session musician to producing my own records, composing for orchestras and scoring for film and TV – I am extremely passionate about the work that The F-list carries out, and how essential it is for our UK music industry.

It is not an easy industry to navigate and there is no secret formula to ‘success’, however, knowing that there is a talented and dedicated community, not only collating our talents and skills, but helping make connections and shouting about our assets to the world is vitally important!

There are now more female higher-profile players leading us as role models than ever before, but shocking statistics are still showing a major disparity between the gender gap in music. Highlighting those musicians behind the scenes, who also produce, engineer, orchestrate, conduct… The F-list continues to positively build upon and endorse a supportive place that reflects our rich diversity. It is an honour to represent this wealth of British talent.

The F-List for Music helps UK women and gender diverse musicians overcome structural barriers and sustain their music careers for longer. Since forming just three years ago the not for profit organisation, run mainly through passionate volunteers and a dedicated board of twelve women from across music, has organised online events for over 500 participants, taken 28 women through their flagship ‘Culture of Belonging’ producer training program at Miloco Studios, formed partnerships with important industry organisations and worked with numerous events and festivals helping them source diverse talent, such as Under the Stars, Primadonna and Out and Wild. The social enterprise also gives visibility to underrepresented talent through their website, playlists and social media channels, and by running the online directory – an ever-expanding community now with over 6,000 musicians featuring musicians, songwriters, and composers, bands and groups from every genre of music and enables them to be found and booked for professional opportunities. And as more women upload their music and information onto the site it keeps growing like a wiki for UK female musicians. This is an incredible resource for gig promoters, commissioners, labels, other musicians, and journalists who wish to find diverse musicians. And, uniquely, all of this is grounded in expert academic research; the innovative Gender in Music Research Hub with a network of 70 academic and industry researchers and an annual conference, ensuring all of their work and campaigning is grounded in facts and evidence.