News to start your week!
Marin Alsop and Dalia Stasevska will both make their conducting debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic. Alsop will lead the orchestra from February 20–22, and Stasevska from February 27 – March 1. Alsop’s program will feature four composers from all over the world and pieces depicting different landscapes: Brett Dean’s Fire Music commemorating the “Black Saturday” bushfires in Australia in 2009, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Choros No. 10 that evokes the birdsong of the Amazon rainforest, and the world premiere of Outi Tarkiainen’s Day Night Day that celebrates the music of the Samí people of northern Finland. Stasevska’s program will feature works from northern Europe—Jean Sibelius’s Pohjola’s Daughter, Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto, and Orion by Kaija Saariaho—in addition to Debussy’s La Mer.
Below, listen to Saariaho’s Orion, performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2015.
Members of Kazakhstan’s first all-female orchestra, Sezim Music Show
On February 7th, Kazakhstan’s first all-female orchestra will perform at the Zhastar Palace in Astana. Their concert will feature music from Western film soundtracks with strong female leads, including: Kill Bill, Disney’s Mulan, Sex and the City, Barbie, Coyote Ugly, and Charlie’s Angels. The ensemble’s founders—cellist Botagoz Kaliyeva, violinist Madina Bekmadiyeva, composer Shyryn Bazarkulova, and singer Jordan Arakelyan—came together to make a creative platform for women musicians that would create job opportunities, promote artistic work, and form a network of like-minded colleagues. There are 25 women in the orchestra, and they both play a wide range of classical instruments and specialize in more contemporary performance genres like DJing. The Astana Times recently published a feature article on the orchestra, interviewing its four founding members and promoting the mission of the ensemble. The four founders began as an all-female music show called Sezim, meaning “a feeling” and have expanded their vision from there to begin the orchestra.
On February 15, University of North Carolina School of the Arts faculty Oskar Espina Ruiz, clarinet, and Dmitri Vorobiev, piano, presents a recital celebrating the work of women composers. It begins with excerpts from Amy Beach‘s Grandmother’s Garden and continues with works including: Gabriela Lena Frank’s haunting Hilos (“Threads”), Jamaican-born Eleanor Alberga’s Duo from Dancing with the Shadow, and Jennifer Higdon‘s Clarinet Sonata.
On March 22 the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra presents a program “Her Story in Music.” The orchestra will celebrate musical achievements of women throughout history in a program of choral, chamber, and symphonic music, including works by Hildegard of Bingen, Florence Price, Jennifer Higdon, and Unsuk Chin.
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has announced number of concerts by women conductors and pieces by women composers as part of its 2025-2026 season. Works by women include Lisa Bielawa‘s PULSE for Violin and Orchestra, Anna Clyne‘s Abstractions, movements from Margaret Bonds‘ Montgomery Variations, Anna Thorvaldsdottir‘s ARCHORA, Louise Farrenc‘s Overture No. 2, Margaret Brouwer‘s Pulse, Julia Adolphe‘s Underneath the Sheen, and both Jennifer Higdon‘s Blue Cathedral and Fanfare Ritmico. Guest conductors will include Kristiina Poska, Oksana Lyniv, and Tabita Berglund. Featured guest artists will include pianist Hélène Grimaud, violinist Stella Chen, and CSO Hornist Elizabeth Freimuth.
Below is the first movement “Marble Moon” of Anna Clyne’s Abstractions, played by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in a November 2022 concert.
Finally — Thanks to our friend Katherine Needleman (on Facebook and Substack) who tipped us off to this important exposé: a professor of horn at Rice University, William VerMeulen (allegedly) routinely sexually harassed women students (he retired abruptly last spring). The meticulously-documented article reports on harassment cases filed back in 1990s — and Rice doing nothing to prevent the abuse from continuing. Bravo to cutting-edge journalism from Riya Misra, editor of the student paper The Rice Thresher, which published the article along with The Barbed Wire.
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