There’s lots to listen to this week!
The Denver Young Artists Orchestra has announced the release of its live recording of Marion Bauer’s Piano Concerto “American Youth” on Friday, May 30th. The DYAO is a recipient of a 2023 Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy Performance grant. Marion Bauer (1882 – 1955) was a composer, music critic, teacher, and writer. She taught at NYU and the Julliard School, edited the Musical Leader (Chicago), and helped found the American Music Guild, the American Music Center, and the American Composers Alliance. She also held leadership roles with the League of Composers and the Society for the Publication of American Music. Her combined society work, teaching, and writing meant that she was a foundational influence on American music in the early twentieth century. Though there are implications in the writing of Ruth Crawford Seeger and remarks by Martin Bernstein and Milton Babbitt that Bauer was a lesbian, conclusive evidence about this part of her social identity remains elusive. She premiered the “American Youth” Concerto in 1943.
On June 7, 2025 Elysium, the Sonoro Chamber Ensemble, and The Sonoro Women’s Choir will present their program, Vivaldi’s Gloria at the Lagerquist Concert Hall in Tacoma, Washington. In addition to Vivaldi’s “Gloria” they will perform Katerina Gimon‘s Elements and Ola Gjeilo’s Song of the Universal.
Gimon’s Elements is set of four choral works that depict the four classical elements—Earth, Air, Fire, and Water—abstractly while exploring the range of capabilities of the human voice. Sometimes called “extended techniques,” the capabilities range from overtone singing, to vocalized percussion, to new and colorful timbres. Elements relies on syllables generated through improvisation rather than on a more traditional text to evoke the character and essence of each element. The work premiered in 2014, and won the 2014 IAWM Search for New Music, the 2015 Vancouver Chamber Choir’s Young Composers competition, and the 2016 SOCAN Young Composers competition.
In the spirit of the upcoming summer heat, below is the movement “Fire” performed by the Texas All-State Treble Choir in 2022.
On June 14, 2025 the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble will open their 25th Anniversary Festival at the Mezzanine Theater of A.R.T./New York with their “Voice of Her Heart” program. Featured on the program will be works by three historical and three contemporary women composers: Clara Schumann, Fanny Hensel, and Alma Mahler (historical), and Martha Sullivan, Valerie Saalbach, and Ellen Mandel (contemporary). The contemporary portion of the program features composers who are particularly special to the dell’Arte Opera. Sullivan’s recent three-song cycle “Chasing Light” will include performances by three alumni—Andi Chinedu Nwoke, Courtenay Budd Caramico, and Clara Lisle—each presenting an experience of a woman in the modern world through poetry from Ukraine, Kenya, and the United States. Elyse Kakacek will sing Valerie Saalbach’s “Caterina to Camoens,” a song cycle of poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Clara Lisle will sing two of Ellen Mandel’s settings of poetry by the late Seamus Heaney. The program will also feature settings of Frauenliebe und -Leben (A Woman’s Love and Life) by Robert Schumann and Carl Loewe.
Below is a 2023 performance of “Chasing Light” with accompanying dance, performed by members of the East Carolina University School of Music.
Naxos Album cover, new works by Florence Price
The Naxos label has released a new album of music by Florence Price in its American Classics series. The music was recorded by John Jeter and the Malmö Opera Orchestra, with featured artists Han Chen (piano) and Fanny Clamagirand (violin). It includes Price’s three complete concerto compositions: the two violin concertos (1939 and 1952) and her Piano Concerto in One Movement (1932–34). William Grant Still’s 1953 orchestration of her Dances in the Canebrakes, which was originally for piano, is also included. The album can be streamed directly from the Naxos catalogue and is also available for purchase.
In other news,
The ensemble Musica Poetica will present a program of music and poetry by Italian female composers of the Baroque era at Lichtenstein Palace (Prague) on June 16, 2025. Composers include Francesca Caccini, Isabella Leonarda, and Barbara Strozzi.
The Ancora Women’s Choir presents their a cappella program, A Bouquet of Flowers, on Saturday June 7, 2025 at the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium. Featuring poetry spanning nearly a thousand years (Hildegard to Emily Dickinson) in settings by Amy Beach, Morten Lauridsen, Anders Endroth, and Mari Esabel Valverde, the program’s featured work will be Beach’s Three Flower Songs (1896).
Applications for the Hart Institute Conducting Fellowship (for Women Conductors) at the Dallas Opera opened on June 1, 2025 and will close on August 31. Semi-finalists will be notified in November, and will be invited for an audition in-person at The Dallas Opera in February 2026.
Let us know what you’re listening to! Email us at info@wophil.org