We hope your week is getting off to a great start! Here’s some news!
Valerie Coleman, composer
On June 25th, the Imani Winds played Valerie Coleman’s Phenomenal Women (concerto for wind quintet and chamber orchestra) as part of a symphonic program at the Grant Park Music Festival. The Imanis premiered the concerto with the American Composers Orchestra in 2018; a performance with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the piece’s other co-commissioning ensemble, took place at the Library of Congress in 2019. The piece draws its title from Dr. Maya Angelou’s poem and book of the same name. Its movements feature five specific phenomenal women (Maya [Angelou], Katherine Johnson, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, and Claressa Shields), and one “Caravana” is dedicated to the courage of often-unnamed immigrant mothers “who have risked their lives to enter the United States and are fighting to reclaim their children.” (Composer’s note.)
As Coleman describes in her composer notes, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra approached her while she was writing the original piece for large orchestra to ask for an alternate version of Phenomenal Women where the solo quintet parts are integrated into the orchestra parts—one appropriate to the size and function of a chamber orchestra. While she originally agreed to making an adaptation of the original piece, Coleman used the opportunity to revise and re-direct the chamber orchestra version of the piece. She condensed the original six movements into four, made some cuts, and re-developed some of the existing thematic material. The result is two pieces that share a pool of common musical themes and literary inspirations, but use them in ways that suit the size of each ensemble. Coleman’s interviews with both The American Composers Orchestra (large orchestra version) and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (chamber orchestra version) are available via YouTube.
Clara Iannotta, composer Credit: Julia Wesely
The Conservatoire de Paris has announced that it has appointed Clara Iannotta as professor of composition from the 2025/26 academic year. There has been some speculation that Iannotta is the first woman to hold this position; first or not, she has joined an exclusive group of women who have held Paris Conservatory professorships, particularly in fields such as composition and analysis. Iannotta is in many ways a pan-European composer: she has Italian origins, studied in Paris (including the Paris Conservatoire), and has been living and working in Berlin. Her latest piece, glass and stone (video and electronics) is available on her website.
Iannotta’s orchestral work regularly combines the ensemble with electronics. Her dead wasps in the jam-jar (ii) for string orchestra, objects, and sine waves (2016) marks the beginning of an experimental repertoire for orchestra. Many of her “works for ensemble” (listed separately) could also easily be classified as works for orchestra or chamber orchestra, such as: clangs (2012) for cello and 15 musicians, paw-marks in wet cement (ii) (2018) for piano and amplified ensemble, and vacant lot (strange bird) (2023) for large amplified ensemble.
Below is a recording of Iannotta’s 2020 work they left us grief-trees wailing at the wall for nine amplified instruments, recorded in 2024 by RIOT Ensemble and conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum.
On July 2nd at 12:10 Pacific Time, the Calico Winds (Eileen Holt, flute; Kathy Oh, oboe (guest); Kathryn Nevin, clarinet; Theresa Treuenfels, bassoon; and Rachel Berry, horn) will perform a concert of chamber music by women composers for the Glendale City Church Noon Concerts series in Glendale, California. The ensemble members are all freelancers in Los Angeles and the greater Southern California area. The brief program will include the Four Sarabandes by Radie Britain, Ouvrage de Dame (1937) by Elsa Barraine, and the Woodland Wind Quintet (1997) by Gwyneth Walker.
Below is a 2011 recording of the group performing Adrienne Albert’s “Sam’s Dance” at the Boston Court Theater in Pasadena, CA.
On June 27th, the LSO announced that Dame Kathryn McDowell will retire as Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra after the 2025-26 season. She has spent twenty years as Managing Director, and “is leav[ing] with the Orchestra playing at the top of its game and working with an exceptional group of artists, supported by a highly experienced and dedicated staff team.” The orchestra has effusively wished her well and begun an international recruitment process.
The recent concert of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, featuring the Piano Concerto by Helen Hagan, received this insightful coverage from the Arts Paper of Greater New Haven:
A swooning string section echoed and amplified Samantha Ege’s chords at the grand piano. … woodwinds wove in and out in a moody tapestry, evoking a dream ballet in an old Hollywood movie. At one point, a motorcycle roared by, completing the sounds of New Haven. It was Helen Hagan’s Piano Concerto in C Minor, played in and to the heart of the city.
Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy will be publishing the Hagan Concerto, so stay tuned! We can look forward to many more performances of this exciting piece!
The Program for 5th Women’s Work in Music Conference at Trinity Laban Conservatory has been announced, which will take place from August 29–31 at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (Old Royal Naval College, London). The first four conferences were held biennially at Bangor University. The current program includes 73 research lectures, 8 lecture-recitals, 3 conference concerts, 2 keynote addresses, an archival visit to Goldsmiths University, and a UK Industry panel on misogyny in music. The topics range from the work of individual women, to educational and other musical institutions, to entrepreneurship, and run the length of music history from the Middle Ages to the present.
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