Kvinde Kend Din Historie (Woman, Know Your History) is a popular Danish feminist history project, a book and a podcast written and created by Danish historian Gry Jexen. The book, published in 2021 by Jexen herself and called Kvinde Kend Din Historie: Spejl Dig I Fortiden, profiles the history of 50 notable women whose skills, creativity and resilience have helped to shape Danish history in the last 500 years, emphasizing particularly on the goal to write women back into mainstream Danish history and show how past female figures helped to shape modern society in Denmark.
Someone that was particularly interested and touched, at the same time, by Gry Jexen's multifaceted project concerning the stories of determination, struggles and courage showed by said women, was the brilliant Danish Jazz singer/songwriter Emma Pilgaard, an artist that stunned many contemporary Jazz lovers and member of the press with her impressive debut album called In My Garden, back in 2024.
Pilgaard studied intensely Jexen's project and decided to focus, among those incredible 50 women, on 9 of them specifically; Painter Anna Ancher, Electronic Music Pioneer Else Marie Pade, Writer and social critic Thit Jensen, Geophysicist Inge Lehmann, Silent Film Actress and Stunt Performer Emilie Sannom, Baker and Entrepreneur Karen Volf, Sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen and the less-known story of Carla Hansine Petersen, chosen as an example of what Danish women had to go through in the early 1900, for what concerns eugenics policies.
The young talented Danish artist decided, rightly so, to call for the recording of the new album (the third, in Pilgaard's career to date) a fabulous ensemble of all-female musicians to play on the album, giving to them the license of bringing their own voices to a project that is truly one of a kind. The five musicians, who really completed beautifully Pilgaard's classy and sophisticated new project, are respectively Estonian pianist Rahel Talts, Polish drummer Patrycja Wybranczyk, Swedish bassist Hilda Nordkvist, Danish vibraphonist Viktoria Sondergaard and Danish trumpeter Ida Brinch.
Emma Pilgaard's new record, released today worldwide, is called, rather aptly, A Woman's Voice and its quality is absolutely breathtaking, starting from the way the Danish singer and songwriter created a lyrical emotional bond with each of the protagonists of the stories, an emotional bond that transpires also in the way that Pilgaard delivers said lyrics in a passionate and compassionate style, with such an impressive vocal range that often creates spine-tingling moments on the album.
What also impresses enormously, it is the way that Pilgaard and her fellow musicians shaped delicate and sophisticated melodies at the same time, within A Woman's Voice, where also Pilgaard allowed plenty of space for each of the musicians to go free-form, if they felt like and they were "feeling" emotionally any of the stories of those formidable women so impressively penned, lyrically and vocally, by the suave and highly inspired Danish singer.
Another important aspect that helps to understand and even more appreciate the concept behind A Woman's Voice, are the sleeve notes included within the CD/vinyl; Pilgaard explained very well and in details where the whole project behind her new album and the story related to the protagonists of the record came from, something that surely will help very much the listener to be introduced to the record, from a historical viewpoint, and also be then able to immerse themselves in listening carefully each of the songs, letting themselves embrace the whole album from beginning to the end, as it deserves.
A Woman's Voice is one of the most inspired, well written, performed and interpreted records in the world of Jazz in 2026, created by a supreme artist that delivers an absolute sonic, vocal and lyrical masterpiece. Massive Kudos to Emma Pilgaard, for such a magnificent record.
