We hope you are keeping warm as you start this December week!
The organization New York Women Composers (NYWC) has announced the 2025 recipients of their Seed Money Grants. The organization has awarded eight grants of $1000 each to support seven concert projects and one recording/streaming project. Among the projects that these grants will support are:
- the Berten D’Hollander–Nina Siniakova flat & piano duo, who are soliciting score proposals from members of NYWC for performance;
- the Khemia ensemble—a classical chamber ensemble with dynamic instrumentation drawn from vocal soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and two percussion—who will present a concert featuring members of NYWC;
- the clarinet and piano duo of Kristen Mather de Andrade and Yalin Chi as they present a combined concert of music by NYWC members with a visual art exhibition;
- the Nu [woodwind] Quintet, which will both perform and record works by NYWC composers;
- the Skyline Bones trombone trio, which will perform and record a concert of NYWC music at Opera America Studios;
- Elizabeth Stevens’s project She Speaks—a chamber music concert celebrating the expressive and poetic power of women planned for March 2026.
We look forward to hearing about these projects and all of the new music by women composers that they produce in the near future!
Clara Schumann, composer
On December 5–6, guest conductor John Storgårds led the first Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra performances of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances (Op. 22) on a program that also included Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. Schumann wrote the original for violin and piano in 1853 and dedicated it to Joseph Joachim; this recent orchestration by Benjamin de Murashkin is gaining large-ensemble traction.
Dame Ethel Smyth, composer
On December 7th, Ethel Smyth’s “Overture” to her early opera Fantasio will receive its UK premiere by Peter Fender and the Angel Orchestra at St. Silas’s Church in Risinghill Street, London. Fantasio was only performed in Germany during Smyth’s life—a number of her works found success in continental Europe before they did so in the UK—and had not been performed since these initial hearings. The newly edited version of the overture will hopefully both gain the opera the hearings it did not have during Smyth’s life as well as usher in a new popular work by a trailblazing woman.
On December 7th, Elim Chan led the Bamberg Symphony in a performance of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem (1971). The program also included works by Dvořák and Bartók. The main character is a small piece of chalk used to write on slates and blackboards. “The chalk dreams that it will draw marvelous castles, beautiful gardens with pavilions and the sea” the composer writes in her program note. “But day in, day out, she [the chalk] is forced to draw boring words, numbers and geometric shapes on the blackboard. In contrast to the children, who are growing every day, she is getting smaller and smaller.” There’s a happy, whimsical ending to the fairytale, however!
Below is a recording of Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem performed by the SWR Symphonieorchester in 2024, directed by Eva Ollikainen.
The Fryderyk Chopin Institute is calling for papers for the International Musicological Conference “Through the Prism of Chopin: Women, Music, and Social Change in the Long Nineteenth Century,” which will take place in Warsaw from December 3-5, 2025. The presentations and discussions will be conducted in English. The deadline for submission of papers is March 31, 2025.
Conductor Joseph Bastian is currently on Day 8 of his 24 Days of Women Composers series on Instagram. Each day in December leading up to Christmas he will feature a reel with a short biography of a historical woman composer. Reels so far this year have included Amy Beach, Luise Adolpha Le beau, Marianaa Martinez, Louise Farrence, Mel Bonis, Dora Pejačević, and Florence Price.
Kittle Whately, mezzo-soprano
Lately, mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately has released a new album: Rebecca Clarke: Complete Songs (Challenge Records, 2025). Of the 57 tracks on the album, 22 are described as premieres. These songs span the breadth of Clark’s career. Whately is also performing a recital on the final days of the London Song Festival on Dec. 12th drawn from this material. Whately is a Kathleen Ferrier Award winner and BBC New Generation Artist. She has sung leading roles with British and European opera companies and orchestras.
Finally, a sample orchestral item from Katherine Needleman’s list of holiday music by women composers (linked below): Leanna Primiani’s extremely brilliant Gaudete for Orchestra (2021)!
As we continue to move through “Messiah” and “Nutcracker” season, please continue keep an ear out for holiday music by women composers! Our friend Katherine Needleman has stated this list of music by women for many holidays, — Christmas/Winter/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/New Year is most pertinent at the moment, but other holidays are also included. Let us know who you hear! Email us at info@wophil.org