News and music to start your week!
PBS Newshour had the story about the San Fransciso Civic Symphony and their conductor, Jessica Bejarano. Growing up in an environment that didn’t particularly embrace classical music, Bejarano speaks about the challenges she experienced in receiving her classical music education, and now as a Mexican-American woman conductor in a field dominated by western European men.
NewMusicBox speaks to composer and sound artist Ellen Reid about her approach to music and her work. Read on at the website, and see a bit of the conversation below:
Last week we share information about the coming premiere of Julia Wolfe’s new opera, Fire in my mouth. This week we share a review by David Patrick Stearns.
And congratulations go to Dalia Stasevska, who joins the BBC Symphony as principal guest conductor. The Guardian has the story.
Sadly, we learned of the death of Dr. Nancy Reich, noted scholar of Clara Schumann, and influential and pioneering feminist musicologist. Dr. Reich’s 1985 book on Clara Schumann was the first scholarly biography of a female composer and demonstrated emphatically that the historic role of a female musician can and should be taken seriously. We gave our AMY AWARD to Dr. Reich in 2012, recognizing her Lifetime achievement in Music Scholarship: “The very different scholarly landscape that surrounds us now, in which feminist scholarship and interest in women’s lives and musical creations is mainstream, is in a great part due Dr. Reich’s pioneering work.”
And the Clara Schumann 200th anniversary is gathering momentum, which serves as a tribute to Nancy Reich’s dedicated scholarship that did so much to bring recognition to Clara’s achievement. One of the first of the anniversary concerts is the Santa Rosa Symphony, featuring Clara’s Piano Concerto, Op. 5, with soloist Sara Davis Buechner, and including music by Clara’s husband and the Mendelssohn siblings, Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel.
As ever, we want to know your views, and what we missed! [email protected]