Unsung

This is a history of the Second World War - as you have never heard it before.


Dancer, singer and intelligence agent Josephine Baker

German Nazi pianist Elly Ney

British pianist Myra Hess

Composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor

Ballerina Tatiana Vecheslova

Violinist Alma Rosé, conductor of the Auschwitz women's orchestra

Jazz band the International Sweethearts of Rhythm


Prize-winning author Leah Broad brings to life the unsung stories of the trailblazing women who entertained the troops, fought for their country in secret and kept hope alive on the home front. Spanning Britain, Europe, Russia, and the United States, she reveals how these pioneering musicians shaped wartime culture, and how their private lives were in turn transformed, whether resisting or perpetrating national ideologies.

Unsung shows how these extraordinary women fought to perform, to create, to exist - and forges a radical new soundscape of the twentieth century.