Ulysses Quartet, curating/performing ensemble of the 2025/26 season
It’s a great week for fans of music by women!
The Schneider Concert Series in New York have announced a new series of six Sunday Matinee concerts for the 2025/26 season at The New School. The series will highlight music by American women composers on each concert, in addition to pieces by the musicians performing and some classics. Featured composers will include: Katherine Balch, Christina Bouey, Reena Esmail, Vivian Fung, Jessie Montgomery, and Caroline Shaw. Performing will be the Dolphins, Abeo, Ulysses, and Katarina string quartets; the ensemble Trio Eris; and soloist Olga Kern (piano). Since 1957, the Schneider Concerts have gained a reputation as a series to watch and have debuted many ensembles (Guarneri, Dover, and Isidore string quartets, among others) that have gone on shape the future of classical music.
Martha Councell-Vargas, flute
On August 7th at 1pm local time, Martha Councell-Vargas (flute) and Ann DuHamel (piano) will present a lunchtime recital of music by women composers at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town. The program will include some WPA favorites as well as new faces: Clara Schumann, Mel Bonis, Lili Boulanger, Hedwige Chrétien, Augusta Holmès, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, & Claude Arrieu. Council-Vargas and DuHamel have commitment to performing socially conscious music in common: Councell-Vargas has dedicated much of her work to decolonizing classical flute repertoire and to platforming music by Latin American and Caribbean composers; DuHamel’s recent project, Prayers for a Feverish Planet, combines environmental advocacy and performance.
On July 31, The San Diego Jewish World reported a delightful and surprising substitution on the Sunday Matinee Emergence concert of La Jolla’s Summer Fest. Yulianna Avdeeva (2010 first prize winner of the Chopin competition) was unable to secure a Visa to enter the United States and play for the festival, and pianist Jeremy Denk traveled to the event to fill in for her. Instead of playing the programmed Chopin, Denk substituted four études by Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836). The études were paired with Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata—a classic in the viola repertoire, and beloved by listeners. Montgeroult lived through the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and was one of the first women to teach at the post-Revolution Paris Conservatoire.
Below is a selection of Montgeroult’s études, performed by pianist Claire Hammond at Wigmore Hall, London in 2023.
Dr. Theresa Bogard
On August 1 the University of Wyoming announced that Dr. Theresa Bogard, professor of music and keyboard area coordinator, has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to conduct research and teach in Brazil during the 2025-26 academic year. Bogard’s Fulbright project focuses on two of her areas of expertise — piano pedagogy and Brazilian classical music — and aims to expand international scholarship by exploring and sharing lesser-known works by Brazilian women composers. She says that “my introduction to the depth and breadth of the canon of Brazilian music in 2007 permanently altered the direction of my research, [and] I am honored to receive this Fulbright grant in order to continue my exploration of music by Brazilian women composers.” Bogard’s residency will be through the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UniRio), and her work will combine research, teaching, performance, and recording in the pursuit of promoting Brazilian art music. She will conduct research in solo piano and chamber works by women composers from Brazil from the 19th century to the present using the archives at Música Brasilis in Rio de Janeiro and Instituto Piano Brasileiro in Brasília. Her findings will help select pieces for revival via public performance and professional recording, which will be available via the Instituto Piano Brasileiro’s website and YouTube channel. Finally, Bogard will teach a course in piano pedagogy and contribute guest lectures to the piano seminar series for enrolled students in Rio.
Amie Doherty, composer
The American Alliance of Women Film Journalists have spotlighted composer and orchestrator Amie Doherty in their current issue. With the release of the film Freakier Friday on August 12, starting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, Doherty moves into a small club of women who have managed to score a studio film in 2025. (To put this in perspective, in 2023 only 10% of the composers who worked on the top 200 box office film in Hollywood were women.) In 2021, Doherty became the first woman to score a Dreamworks animated feature film: Spirit Untamed, based on characters from the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron franchise.
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music wraps up this week on August 10th, and has been proving a fertile environment for women composers of contemporary art music this year. (You can peruse the full festival program here.) Among the featured composers in the 2025 season are: Stacy Garrop, Jennifer Higdon, Karen Lefrak, Missy Mazzoli, Rene Orth, Nina Shekar, Alexandra Vrebalov, and Julia Wolfe. Their work is being performed by artists including Michelle Areyzaga, Gabrielle Beteag, Jennifer Koh, Rachel Lee Rogers, and guest conductor Daniella Candilari.
Asiya Korepanova (piano) with Christopher Wilkins & the Boston Landmarks Orchestra
Photo: Michael Dwyer
Lately, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Wilkins performed a concert of classical favorites local to Boston. The concert featured the work of Amy Beach, Leonard Bernstein, Florence Price, John Harbison, and John Williams. Their performance of Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, op. 45 featuring soloist Asiya Korepanova, was perhaps the first time the piece had been performed in Boston since 1917 when Beach herself was the soloist. Boston ArtsFuse covers the concert in detail, including a review by Aaron Keebaugh that explores the historical and political merits of the piece as well as its musical rewards.
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