Despite some excellent progress in recent years, gender equality in opera and classical music remains a significant issue. In some respects, the policy and culture debate on equality is looking down the wrong end of the telescope: female artists don’t need a greater share of a man’s world; they need to be understood and celebrated for who they are – and on their own terms.

One of the biggest factors shaping many women’s creative and career pathways is motherhood. Many composers and musicians need to take a break from music when they become mums and time spent on music after this transition often evaporates or changes form. Certainly, maintaining a direct presence at concerts and within the right industry circles often takes a back seat.

In a music industry obsessed with youth, body shape, AI filters and trends, mothers can find it hard to re-engage with music performance later in life. Neither amateur musicians nor career artists can escape the constant reminders – across all forms of media – of the marketing value of being young for the TV shows and cameras, fashionable for social media and sexy for album covers.

In contrast, my return to music performance after raising two children could not have been more fulfilling. I now channel the beauty, self-learning and character development I gained through raising children into both my singing and song-writing. Returning to music as a mother, I feel more spirituality in the music I perform. I bring to the works I perform a wider understanding of the world – ‘vissuto’ as we say in Italia – the raw, unfiltered, lived experience which, together with humility, is fully connected with the human condition and the enduring power of music to unite people in a troubled, polarised world.

I am a better artist for the me that I bring back to music. I now sing and write with a greater clarity and meaning, a more fluent wisdom, love and care. I also understand my instrument better: I am more conscious of my voice and my body, of my vocal technique and what I need to do to keep myself fit vocally, as well as my lifestyle choices.

Song-writing is something that was born in me during the time when I was trying to get pregnant. Unable to perform live, song-writing kept me musically connected, allowing me time to discover another creative side of me. I’ve never studied composition, so I just followed my instincts and musical logic. My songs have been a way to tell my personal life story, with each song reflecting a particular experience. My song Sadness, for example, was written in memory of my own mother, Lara, who passed in my arms in early 2019.

What I’ve learned about music’s place in the world and what I have to say as an artist now all comes from my life experience as a mother. Many believe that conductors get better the older they get, because of the wisdom of interpretation that comes with time and life experience, and for men it can take many decades to hit their spiritual prime. Women, however, follow a different journey. For many of us, in the second or third decade of our lives we focus on a new priority, the gift of life and the children we bring into the world and raise. The complex emotional, spiritual and human growth that we experience through motherhood gives us a unique lens through which we can reconnect with music in our 40s – unlike men, we don’t have to wait until we’re in our 70s or 80s.

And yet no one in classical music seems to talk about motherhood, either as a challenge to the career-hungry, or as an empowering creative enabler. From conversations I have had over the years, many mothers leave music careers when they start a family – and sometimes there’s no way back, which is a tragedy. There are many passionate amateur musicians that stop playing music after childbirth, and many stop going to the concert hall altogether, prioritising rest and recovery during the rare quiet hours when the kids have gone to bed.

From a marketing perspective, trends in music are so brutally transient and fast-paced, it seems as everyone overlooks the life journeys that actually make people more relevant, spiritually-tuned, resilient and socially-connected artists. This is where the magic in music – and in art as a whole – comes from, and why it matters, now more than ever, that Mums in Music are supported.

As a music industry, we need women of all ages and life stages to feel able to keep their musical journeys alive, to be supported and encouraged in their return to music as active and working mums. Being a mother is not a barrier, it is an asset. Embracing working mothers is an important step on the path to making the music sector a more caring, loving and beautiful industry.

We need to call time on women having to ‘be like men’ to succeed. Instead, we need to be celebrated for who we are. Join me in starting a new and empowering conversation around Mums in Music – giving a voice, a platform and a confidence-boost for mums worldwide that want to return to music.