Exciting News!! Composer Jeanine Tesori has become the first woman composer to open a season for the Metropolitan Opera in its 141 years of operation. Her opera Grounded was given a gala premiere, starring mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo on September 23,as announced in this Met Press Release. The opera features a fighter pilot grappling with the morality and psychological impacts of virtual warfare. Grounded was revised from its original Kennedy Center performances in Fall of 2023, shortening the work by about thirty-five minutes. About the cuts, Tesori remarked, “You don’t know until you know. And then you know.” Tesori and her librettist George Brant discuss the revising process, and the differences between opera and musicals, in this interview in the NYTimes (free from Paywall). NYTimes critic Zachary Wolfe offers this mixed review, and a broader opinion piece considering Grounded and a new opera by Missy Mazzoli, Opera Is Still Obsessed With the Suffering of Women (both paywall free). In addition to this and her three previous operas, Tesori has been cited by ASCAP as the first woman to have two new musicals currently running on Broadway. Her credits include theatrical music for shows on Broadway and off as well as film scores. Grounded will stream live as part of the Met’s HD Broadcasts on October 19. It is only the third ever opera composed by a woman to be performed at the Met.
Below is the preview of the opera from the Kennedy Center’s premiere performances.
On Saturday, Oct. 5, Pacifica Chamber Orchestra (Fred Chu, Artistic Director) performs (in Everett, WA) the North American premiere of British composer Ruth Gipps’ Cringlemire Garden: An Impression for String Orchestra, Op. 39. Composed in 1952, the piece has been described as a tone poem. The British composer Ruth Gipps (1921-1999) was a prolific British composer who is just now gaining recognition for her music. The venue is Zion Lutheran Church, Everett, WA. The Pacifica Chamber Orchestra is including women composers in all of its programming this season! Gold Stars to them for their commitment to expanding the canon and making a commitment to equity!
Christina Bailey will present a five-night music education event series, billed as “a book club followed by four nights of partying” at Wendi Kirby Music in Monterey, CA. The event, titled Baroque & Unknown, starts on Oct. 3 and will present music by lesser-known and unknown women composers of the Baroque era. The inaugural evening features Kathryn Radakovich, Learning & development Director of the Boulanger Initiative, as guest speaker on the topic “Where Are The Women?” Works by two composers, Aleotti and Caccini, will be performed by a quintet of members from The Central Coast Chamber Choir. Subsequent evenings include “An Evening in Barbara Strozzi‘s Salon,” “Stephanie Valadez & The Mecate Ensemble” featuring the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and the Monterey Symphony
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Baroque & Unknown celebrates and showcases the musical works of women and gender marginalized composers from different musical eras. As a Monterey County community and music education initiative, it aims to promote these works while fostering connections between music history and vocal empowerment for singers and music lovers. The 2024 season is devoted completely to Baroque-era composers, conversations around musical heritage, and why the representation of women and gender-marginalized composers matters.
The New York Women Composers 2024 Gala has been announced for October 22, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the organization. The evening will feature live performances, a silent auction, and featured guest Laura Kaminsky in a celebration of women in music.
Violinist Njioma Chinyere Grevious will debut as violin soloist with the Sphinx Virtuosi, the flagship organization of the Sphinx Organization, at Carnegie Hall on October 16. She will perform in Curtis Stewart’s Double Down, Invention #1 for Two Violins (World Premiere). The program also includes a movement of Teresa Carreño’s Serenade for strings, and the Overture from Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, arr. Jannina Norpoth. Grevious attended The Juilliard School where won the John Erskine Prize for scholastic and artistic achievement, and in 2023 she won both the First Prize and Audience Choice awards in the Sphinx Competition. In 2024 she was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Below is Grevious performing Maurice Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major with Gilles Vonsattel (piano) in the announcement of her Avery Fischer Career Grant.