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On October 17th the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Livewire 15 festival paid tribute to pioneering women composers. The program featured music by four innovative women composers: Sofia Gubaidulina, Joan Tower, Tania León, and Zosha Di Castri. (Music by Di Castri’s Columbia University colleague, George Lewis, also appeared.) The performance showcased the work of RUCKUS, UMBC’s ensemble-in-residence that focuses on playing contemporary music. A chamber orchestra when all their forces play together, RUCKUS also regularly embraces smaller chamber performances in its efforts to promote new music. DiCastri, the first woman to hold a tenured chair in composition at Columbia, also gave the pre-concert lecture. The concert included a movement from Giubaidulina’s Sounds of the Forest, Di Castri’s Sprung Testament (a transcription of her original version), León’s Parajota Delate, and Tower’s “Into the Night” from her Concerto for Cello.
Below is a recording of Tania León’s Parajota Delaté, which appears on her 1994 album Indígena, featuring Continuum and The Western Wind.
On October 17th, The Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes (OSFL) announced that they have been selected as one of sixteen orchestras in the United States to participate in a new initiative showcasing the works of women and nonbinary composers on a repeated basis. The initiative was founded through the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation’s Commissions Program—always an excellent source for new music—whose mission is to improve the visibility of music by women and nonbinary composers and the invitation to join came from the League of American Orchestras. The League is the only US national organization devoted to supporting orchestras, and they do so through advocacy, artistic programming, leadership development, and research. OSFL’s first work through the project will be a collaboration with composer Wang Jie to produce her piece The Winter that United Us, to be played on the orchestra’s holiday concert on December 13th.
Below a is a recording of The Winter that United Us recorded in 2022 by the Buffalo Philharmonic directed by JoAnn Falletta.
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Dalia Stasevska, conductor
On October 17th & 19th, the Pittsburgh Symphony played Caroline Shaw‘s The Observatory on a program that also included Sibelius and Stravinsky. Stravinsky’s Violin concerto featured the talents of soloist Leila Josefowicz, a MacArthur “genius” Fellow. The concert was conducted by Dalia Stasevska, who is the chief conductor of Lahti Symphony Orchestra (Lahti, Finland) and Artistic Director to the International Sibelius Festival. She is also the Principal Guest Conductor of BBC Symphony Orchestra, and makes regular appearances at the BBC Proms.
Katherine Needleman, oboist
Followers of Katherine Needleman’s activism should know that an important feature by Geoff Edgers appeared in The Washington Post on October 19th detailing her career and work on behalf of women in orchestras. (Readers of the article should note that it contains some specific—but not graphic—details regarding cases of sexual assault, which Needleman has discussed with permission.) In the publication post-mortem, Needleman has expressed some justified disappointment with the final product, particularly that Karen Attiah’s recent firing from that paper while “a white man told my story here while at nearly the same time, the only full-time Black opinion journalist was removed from the paper. It is not a woman telling my story.” Readers who are not Washington Post subscribers can access the full text of the article through a Gift Link on critic Anne Midgette’s breakdown of the article (Thank you, Anne Midgette!). The facts that Edgers reports are true; one wonders, but given that the outlet is a newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos, if the tone of the article would have been less dismissive in a more independent paper. From the way that he’s chosen to present the material, Edgers sounds as though he would prefer that the status quo in classical music regarding women be maintained until Needleman can find a way to make her protest more palatable. The importance of the article shines through, regardless. The work that Needleman and other activists have done to hold sexual predators in orchestras and classical music accountable is essential to achieving parity in orchestras across the world.
On Friday, October 24, 2025, the Houston Choral Society will present its concert “Celebrating Women Composers” at Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, TX at 7:30 PM. They will be collaborating with ECHO: the Energy Corridor of Houston Orchestra to highlight music by Heather Sorenson, Elaine Hagenberg, Rosephanye Powell, and Florence Price. Tickets can be reserved here. The program includes two pieces to be announced by Powell and Price, Elaine Hagenberg’s Illuminaire (DATE), and as the centerpiece Heather Sorenson’s Requiem.
Below is a recording of Sorenson’s Requiem performed at Tallowood Baptist Church by the Houston Choral Society and the Energy Corridor of Houston Orchestra in September 2023. It includes brief prefatory notes, read by the composer. (Requiem begins at 43:06)
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