We hope your week is off to a great start!
Marin Alsop, conductor
Announced on September 30th, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, or MDW) has named conductor Marin Alsop as the new Artistic Director of the institution’s training orchestra, the Webern Chamber Philharmonic (Webern Kammerphilharmonie). The ensemble formed in 2015 with aims for helping to further professionalize its students and recent graduates. It is open to both current students and recent graduates of the MDW by audition, and specifically functions as a training orchestra for those looking to forge professional careers. One of its professionalizing aims is networking—the ensemble frequently collaborates with the Webern Symphony Orchestra (also associated with MDW), and which frequently brings in leading conductors as guests in addition to its famous artistic directors. Ulrike Sych, Rector of MDW, said, “The fact that world-renowned conductor Marin Alsop is taking on the artistic leadership of our Webern Chamber Philharmonic is an enormous benefit to our students and a powerful signal extending far beyond MDW. Marin Alsop stands, like few others, for the combination of artistic excellence and social engagement, for the courage to forge new paths, and for a vision of leadership that sees the intentional development of others as a fundamental responsibility.” (OperaWire)
Sara Glojnarić | Picture: Joanna Paciorek
Announced October 2, Croatian composer Sara Glojnarić will receive the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize. The prize combines the award honor and a commission of a new work, to be performed by the ensemble. The prize will be conferred at the Karajan-Akademie’s concert on October 31, 2026, and the concert will feature the world premiere of Glojnarić’s new work, can you play a song with a f*cking beat?! :)) alongside other works by Schoenberg & Mozart.
Glojnarić is a contemporary Croatian composer with a cache of awards to her name—most recently GEMA’s German Music Authors’ Award in the Young Talent, Contemporary Classical Music category. Her compositions span large-scale works like operas and orchestral music as well as smaller-scale chamber music and video art, and they explore conventions from both classical/art music and pop culture aesthetics. Social and political ideas are always prominent, as are nostalgia and collective memory. A number of her digital projects and recordings of recent work can be streamed via her website, https://www.saraglojnaric.com/.
Below is a recording of sugarcoating #4 (2022), performed by the RSO Wien, conducted by Marin Alsop, and recorded live at Wien Modern 2022.
Gabriella Di Laccio, MBE. Photo © Sharon Eve Smith
On October 2, National Public Radio featured a TED Talk by Gabriella di Laccio, founder of the Donne Foundation. The broadcast is streamable via the TED Radio Hour podcast and directly from the NPR website, which includes both her original TED talk and the Radio Hour interviews. (Broadcast runs 39 minutes). Her interview follows her from her formative years in classical music through well into her performing career. In 2016 she discovered a copy of The International Encyclopedia of Women Composers (by Aaron I. Cohen, first published in 1981) at a Southbank book market in London; the rest, as they say, is history. In 2018 on International Women’s Day she began the website that became the home of the Donne Foundation, whose Equality & Diversity in Global Repertoire report has become very influential. What began as a small website grew into a non-profit, database, and research organization.
In addition to her advocacy and nonprofit work, Di Laccio is an international opera singer (Brazilian-British-Italian). She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music and gender equality in June 2025.
Lately, Lara St. John’s documentary Dear Lara has been enjoying deserved recognition and screenings on the US east coast. Continued opportunities to view the film will happen throughout the autumn. Upcoming screenings this week include:
- October 5 – Free Library of Philadelphia – presented with Philadelphia Musicians Union Local 77-274 AFM (Philadelphia, PA)
Tickets for 4:00 PM screening
Tickets for 6:30 PM screening - October 10 – Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema (Toronto, ON)
Documentarian Lara St. John will be in attendance
Tickets here - October 10 – WXXI Classical Presents at The Little Theatre (Rochester, NY)
Screening includes virtual Q&A with Lara St. John
Tickets here
Katie Jenkins, composer
During the summer of 2026, the Music Division of the U.S. Library of Congress collaborated with the Welsh government, and accepted a gift of music from the people of Wales to the American people in celebration of 250 years of American independence. Welsh composer Katie Jenkins, who makes her home in New York City, composed an orchestral work at the invitation of the Government of Wales for the diplomatic gift. The mandate for the composition was to celebrate the many connections between the Welsh people and America. The result was Jenkins’ Symffoni’r Môr Mawr: A Transatlantic Symphony, a 15-minute work for chorus, orchestra, and vocal soloists. Including voices is a particularly celebratory touch, as it nods to rich American and Welsh choral traditions. The full, choral, and vocal scores for Jenkins’s work are now available through the Library’s digital collections. (Archive enthusiasts, prepare yourselves!) The signed full score is available to researchers in person in the Library of Congress’s Performing Arts Reading Room.
The world premiere recording took place in Cardiff in July 2026. The full recording of the premiere is included below, and available to stream via the Cymru Wales YouTube Channel.
On a program entitled L’heure joyeuse — The Joyful Hour (or, if you prefer, “Happy Hour” 🙂 L’Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg performs Emilie Mayer’s Overture n. 3 on Oct. 6 and 7. Music by the prolific Mayer (who in her lifetime was labelled “The Female Beethoven”) is getting more and more performances, here is a clip of the Overture by L’Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg.
And we are reminded that the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin held an Emilie Mayer festival last spring, performing all of her (surviving) orchestral works, and recently they have released their first recording from the Festival here on Harmonia Mundi, as well as on your favorite streaming sites. You can listen to their entire performance of Overture n. 3 here. This is great news to have these moving performances available, we look forward to the next release!! And because it is very exciting to watch the ensemble in performance, here is a video clip from Mayer’s Faust Overture:
Let us know what you’re listening to! Email us at info@wophil.org, or use our handy contact form.