News and music to start your week!
The Baltimore Sun reports that next season at The Baltimore Symphony will be the last for conductor Marin Alsop, pictured above. She has served as the conductor and artistic leader of the ensemble for 14 years.
Opera Philadelphia has announced that they will open the 2020-2021 season with a new work from Jennifer Higdon. Titled Woman with Eyes Closed, it is inspired by the theft of seven paintings from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam in 2012. A chamber opera performed by 12 instruments and five singers, it explores themes of cultural ethics, laws of society, and individual morality. The title is drawn from that of one of the stolen paintings . Read more – and listen in – at WHYY.
Interlochen Center for the Arts has announced the leadership for the Camp’s 2020 ensembles, with a record number of women at the baton, and works by a number of living women composers as well. As Director Eric Stomberg states “…it is vital that we expose our students to diverse perspectives, especially the perspectives of those who have traditionally been under-represented in classical music.” Read more at their website.
News we missed — the Kapralova Society Journal has released their first issue of the year, available as a PDF here. Contents include a reconstruction of Kaprálová’s “Two Dances for Piano; an introduction to the esteemed 19th c British song composer Maude Valérie White; and announcements about conferences, and more!
Watch the Video-on-Demand to March 10! The Bavarian State Opera has transformed Bartok’s opera, “Bluebeard’s Castle” into “Judith” — Instead of a grim testament of women being trapped as powerless victims, it is now a powerful crime-scene drama, where Bluebeard’s newest wife is actually an undercover detective who frees the previous wives, and kills the perpetrator. Thus the opera becomes an exciting testament to women’s empowerment — all without changing a note of the music or a word of the libretto. The opera is preceded by a film that sets up the revised drama,using Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra” as the audio backdrop. Oksana Lyniv is the music director. An exciting review is here (use Google Translate!)
March is Women’s History Month – and there are many ways to celebrate women’s work in music throughout the next few weeks.
The Boulanger Initiative’s second annual WoCo Festival takes place on March 8 (International Women’s Day) in Washington DC. Highlights include the Barclay Brass performing arrangements of Lili Boulanger, Hildur Guðnadóttir, as well as a surprise world premiere commissioned for WoCo Fest; and inscape, a Chamber Orchestra offering works of Hilary Purrington and Alexandra Gardner, amongst others.
Liane Curtis offers a short selection of other March events here.
So much going on! Be sure to let us know what we missed! [email protected]