Aoife O'Donovan

St George’s is delighted to welcome Aoife O’Donovan this June.

In 1916, Carrie Chapman Catt declared to a crowd of women’s suffragists that the world was in crisis – and it was time to turn that crisis into victory. “The Woman’s Hour has struck,” she announced. In All My Friends, the new album from Aoife O’Donovan, her message is amplified until it reverberates into a new millennium. While O’Donovan has never considered herself a political songwriter, her new album testifies to her belief in the power of the vote. “We are so lucky to live in a democracy,” says O’Donovan, “and we have to participate in it. Just like stopping at a red light or being a good neighbor, voting is our responsibility as citizens.”

The nine tracks on All My Friends build a rich, expansive sound upon the singer-songwriter’s harmonious and contemplative trademark style. Conceived and recorded as an orchestral venture, the album’s ambitious scale and anthemic quality reflects its themes, with songs inspired by the life and mission of Chapman Catt, whose work O’Donovan discovered in 2019. A commission to celebrate the centenary of the 19th amendment, which first granted American women the right to vote, led O’Donovan to Chapman Catt’s letters and speeches, whose words, she says, “felt timeless”.