News and music to start your week!
This week we learned of the amazing Ofentse Pitse (pictured above) – the 27 year old South African is the first conductor and CEO of an all-black orchestra, called Anchored Sound.
Learn more about composer Tania León at the Library of Congress Performing Arts Blog: In the Muse. A researcher describes her work with the LOC collection, and her discovery and appreciation of León’s work. Also, the article references our article (by Chris A. Trotman) Joan Tower & Tania Léon in Conversation from June 2019. 🙂
It only took 150 years (!) but the Vienna Opera House is finally staging a work by a woman composer. Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel, will premiere on December 8. Learn more at The Guardian.
AND, it only took 150 years (!) but the Royal Philharmonic Society awarded their Gold Medal to a women composer, Sofia Gubaidulina. The prestigious award has been given since 1870 (initiated to coincide with the celebration of Beethoven’s birth) and other composers to receive it include Brahms, Elgar, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Britten, Ligeti, Kurtág and Maxwell Davies. BTW, Gubaidulina’s 2017 Triple Concerto for violin, cello, bayan and orchestra receives its UK premiere in Manchester on 14 December with the BBC Philharmonic.
The first International Florence Price Festival is being planned for August 20-23, 2020, at the University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland), and the deadline for the Call for Proposals (for research or position papers, lecture-recitals, recitals, panel discussions, and other original-format projects) is December 15!
Be sure to let us know what we missed! [email protected]