Women in Music Festival: All-Higdon Concert, March 28

by | Mar 29, 2014

Sorry to have gotten behind in the blogging!  Here is last night’s concert, March 28. I love Jennifer Higdon’s music.  BUT I did have some trepidation that a whole concert of her music might be a bit much. My concern was needless.  The evening was completely...

New Choral Commissions!

by | Feb 27, 2013

In honor of their 25th anniversary season, the New York Virtuoso Singers have commissioned 25 new choral works from American composers. Thirteen of the new pieces will be premiered in NYC on March 3rd, including works by: Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Augusta Read Thomas Thea...

The Long, LONG Arc of History

by | Aug 24, 2012

With the debut of Margaret Ruthven Lang’s Dramatic Overture in 1893, the world changed: never before had an orchestral work composed by a woman been performed on the American stage.  The intervening 119 years have brought monumental social change, much of it due...

The 1.7 Percent: Distilling the 2008-2009 Repertoire Reports

by | Aug 24, 2012

Stories about “the 1%” abound in the media, but today I would like to shine a light on a far less reported, though far more relevant for this site’s purposes, statistic: the 1.7%. Our own Sarah Baer crunched the numbers (provided by the League of American...

New Operas Commissioned in Santa Fe

by | Aug 12, 2011

The Santa Fe Opera announced three new commissions to be premiered over the next three years. The particularly excellent news is that two of the composers are Jennifer Higdon and Judith Weir. From the Santa Fe Opera press release: COLD MOUNTAIN – Jennifer...