News and music to start your week!
Another work by Pauline Oliveros, pictured above, is being performed during this time of social distancing (the first being her Tuning Meditation, taking place every Saturday in April). The LA Times has the story of Opera Povera organizing a performance of Oliveros’ The Lunar Opera: Deep Listening For_Tunes, — timed to coincide with the actual full pink moon. The performance included 250 musicians and served as a fundraiser for coronavirus relief. More information is here, and the entire performance remains available on YouTube.
And speaking of opera, Sweet Land with music by Du Yun and Raven Chacon is now available through Vimeo. The LA Times declares the work as “the best ticket in opera right now.”
And speaking of opera (again), The Met Opera has been streaming one work a day from their “Opera on Demand” library. That prompted this letter to them from WPA’s President Liane Curtis: Dear Met Opera, Thank you so much for offering a daily streaming opera during this time of the COVID19 crisis. That is a brilliant gift to people bereft of routine and in need of emotional uplift and solace. I have one request. As you know, of the Met’s “more than 110 stunning HD videos” and “more than 700 full-length Met performances” only one (ONE!) has music composed by a woman. That is Kaija Saariaho’s “L’Amour de Loin.” I am writing to ask you to please stream that opera. I am President of Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, and if you would stream that we would feature our blogpost and podcasts that we published at the time of the opera’s Met debut. Thank you very much for your consideration. — Unfortunately the Met has not responded, and the future streams, announced through April 19, do not include “L’Amour de Loin.”
The Digital Festival “WOMEN COMPOSERS” continues online, here, to May 1, at the Center for Art and Media of Karlsruhe. The Festival got off to an exciting start with the screening of the film Komponistinnen — but if you missed it, you can see it here on Vimeo (English version) for a limited time. It examines the lives of four women, Lili Boulanger, Fanny Hensel, Mel Bonis and Emilie Mayer, with performances of their music by Kyra Steckeweh, A sequel to Komponistinnen is already being planned!
Congratulations go to Karina Canellakis who was just named the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor. Read more at The Guardian. (BTW, Canellakis recently made her acclaimed first-performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra).
Congratulations also go to Valentina Peleggi who was named the new music director of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra – and the first woman to hold the post. Read more here.
Read about the work that violinist Jennifer Koh is doing through her nonprofit Arco Collaboration to promote more inclusive and diverse music especially in this time of crisis. The Washington Post has more about the exciting project titled Alone Together in which she’s commissioning new works to help keep some of the composers hardest hit in this uncertain time afloat.
And read at Grammy.com how Female Classical Composers are Encouraging Gender Equality. The piece ends with a wonderful quote from Jennifer Higdon:“Keep writing the best music that you can. That’s going to be the best argument to get your music out there; to have music where people go, ‘Oh, I want to hear that again!’”
What did we miss? What are you reading or listening to these days? Let us know! at [email protected]