This biography is shared with permission from Brighton & Hove Museums.
Born: 31 October 1949, Cuba
Died: NA
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
Composer, conductor and a graduate in maths and music, Odaline was the first woman, in 1984, to conduct a Prom in 89 seasons of the BBC Promenade Concerts, since it’s inception in 1895. This world famous music festival is now watched and listened to by an estimated 15 million viewers in the UK. She has since appeared at the Proms regularly and did a special performance in 1994 of Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera, The Wreckers.
Odaline is Cuban-American. She studied at Tulane University, New Orleans and the Royal Academy of Music where she studied composition and piano. In 1976 she founded the Ensemble Lontano. Since then Odaline has received numerous awards, including 2015 Winner Opera America Award for Female Composers, the Villa-Lobos medal given by the Brazilian government in recognition promoting and conducting his music. In April 2015 Martinez received an award from Opera America, toward the production of a video based on her second opera Imoinda. In September 2016 Odaline received a Women Make Music grant from the PRS for Music Foundation toward the writing of her opera Plantation.
She has also dedicated much of her career to enabling other artists to gain opportunities. In 1992 she founded the record label, Lorelt, which concentrates on music neglected by many recording companies, contemporary composers, women composers and those from Latin America.
In 2006 together with Lontano she founded the London Festival of American Music to bring a broader spectrum of the best American and US-based contemporary composers to UK audiences. This festival is now celebrated biennially. Several major works have received their UK premieres there, including works by John Harbison, Marjorie Merryman, Daniel Asia, Peter Child, Chen Yi and Roberto Sierra.
Odaline is also trustee of The Mornington Trust, who has been responsible for community and educational work in Waltham Forest and other London boroughs since 2000.
Odaline says that one of the highlights of her career so far was conducting Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera, The Wreckers. She describes Dame Ethel as one of the most significant composers of the 20th Century. She composed a series of operas and from 1911 to 1913 was closely involved with the Suffragette movement. One of her compositions, The March of Women was adopted as the anthem to the Women’s Social and Political Union. In 1922 she was appointed D.B.E for Services to Music and in 1926 became the first female recipient of an honorary doctorate in Music from Oxford University.