Here are a few things going on mid-June!
Gabriela Ortiz, composer, with GRAMMY Award
On Wednesday June 17, the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic will perform a program that includes Gabriela Ortiz’s Antrópolis, led by Marin Alsop (Carnegie Hall Perspectives Artist). This performance marks the ensemble’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage debut.
In her notes about the piece, Ortiz writes that “In Mexico, until the ’90s, the term [antro] referred to bars or entertainment places of dubious reputation. But nowadays, and especially among younger people, this word refers to any bar or nightclub. While she and flutist Alejandro Escuer were imagining the earliest ideas that would come to be Antropolis, they talked about wanting to evoke not only the music but also the energy and dance of Mexico’s bars and dance halls. Antrópolis became the title—“a neologism, a precise invented name for a piece that narrates the sound of the city through its dance halls and nightclubs.”
Below is a recording of Ortiz’s Antrópolis, premiered by the Orquesta de Minería in 2022, conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto.
Tues. June 16 to Sat. June 20, chamber ensemble Mise-En presents a series of six concerts of contemporary American music in NYC. Twelve of the new and recent pieces presented are works by women composers: Kiki Xiaoman Liu (USA/China): Mirage (2023); Mary Simoni (USA/USA): (Don’t)BeMad (2023); Jee Won Kim (USA/South Korea): Whisperweave (2024); Treya Nash (USA/USA): whisper (2024); Shoko Nagai (USA/Japan): Synthesis Magma (2023); JungAh Lee (South Korea/South Korea): intatto (2024, rev 2025); Maria Vittoria Agresti (Italy/Italy): Burnt (2025); Yanqi Chen (USA/China): They Have Only Exisitence (2025); Kari Watson (USA/USA): VISTAS: WARP, WEFT (2025); Justine Leichtling (USA/USA): Female Loneliness (2025); Liann Kang (USA/South Korea): L’amour pur (2024); and Jonghee Kang (South Korea/South Korea): Insaninhae(Sea of People) (2025).
Deon Nielsen Price (Credit: Wind Repertory Project)
On Tuesday June 16th, the North/South Chamber Orchestra concludes its 46th season in New York City. Their concert will feature a performance of Deon Nielsen Price’s Becoming Screenland for clarinet & strings. Becoming Screenland is a musical tribute to Culver City, California, the composer’s longtime home. Using the Tongva song “Song After the Blessing,” it explores the legacy and change of the area, from Spanish colonization over 200 years ago to the early 20th century. Price is a prizewinning polymath of contemporary classical music—she has done award-winning work as a pianist, composer, recording artist, educator, conductor, author, and served as president of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM).
Included below is a wonderful older work of Price’s for three soloists and orchestra: the Tripple Flute Concerto for three flutes of varying sizes and chamber orchestra. It is performed here by the Metro Chamber Orchestra in a recording from 2015.
Down under, the Australian Chamber Orchestra performs a British-themed program titled Isle of Light in 10 concerts in 5 different Australian cities from June 13 to 23. The program concludes with Elizabeth Maconchy’s Symphony for Double String Orchestra. Completed in 1953, this intense Symphony has been described as one of her masterpieces. Maconchy studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams, who is also on the concert.
Gabriela Lena Frank speaking at University of the Pacific
Gabriela Lena Frank continues to enjoy much deserved acclaim following her 2026 Pulitzer Prize win and being named Musical America’s Composer of the Year for this year.
On June 12 and 13, the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago presents Frank’s monumental Conquest Requiem, with Latin and Spanish text by Nilo Cruz. Commissioned by the Houston Symphony in 2017, the Conquest Requiem reckons with the colonial history of the Americas. In her note to the piece, Frank writes that: “Much has been written of the violent meeting of the Old and New Worlds that produced the Americas known to the world today. … Against such grand historical strokes, the stories of ordinary people are easily swept away but for the efforts of creative imagination, employed here in the Conquest Requiem. This piece is inspired by the true story of Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who was given to the Spaniards as a young slave.” The piece combines both mythologized and historical details of Malinche’s life in addition to Nahua poetry and excerpts from the Mass for the Dead in Latin.
On June 25, the Britt Festival Orchestra will perform the premiere of the Frida y Diego Suite drawn from Frank’s opera El último sueño de Frida y Diego. The adaptation and performance of the Suite follows the fantastic success of the full opera at both the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago during their 2025–2026 seasons. Both the opera and the Conquest Requiem (above) are collaborations between Frank and librettist Nilo Cruz.
Let us know what you’re listening to! Email us at info@wophil.org