These things shall be, an anthem for choir setting words from a prophetic poem by John Addington Symonds, lies at the heart of the story of the rediscovery of Ailsa Dixon’s music. In 2017, after more than 30 years lying in manuscript, it was chosen for premiere by the London Oriana Choir and performed in the spectacular glass-roofed concert hall surrounding the keel of the Cutty Sark ship in Greenwich, as part of the Five15 project highlighting the work of women composers. The performance took place just five weeks before Ailsa Dixon died, and led to a remarkable revival of interest in her music, with a succession of posthumous premieres of works found in her archive. Setting that performance in the context of the wider enterprise to celebrate female composers, conductor Dominic Ellis Peckham reflected in an interview, ‘That experience of enabling Ailsa to hear her piece for the first time at the very end of her life made us realise how important this project is… [in] giving recognition to the many female composers over the centuries whose music has been neglected.’ The London Oriana Choir gave subsequent performances in Bristol (where Ailsa Dixon was born) and in a memorial concert of remembrance in London. Other performances by different choirs in venues associated with the composer include St Mary’s College at the University of Durham where she studied in the 1950s, and the Little Missenden Festival, in the church where she was married. These things shall be has been widely performed by choirs large and small in Oxford and Cambridge chapels, Romsey Abbey, Stationer’s Hall, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank. © Josie Dixon (please credit if using this programme note)