Sorry! We were so busy celebrating Amy Beach’s birthday, we are behind in getting our News Digest out!
And speaking of celebrating Beach, two orchestras are including her delightful waltz Bal Masqué — Savannah Philharmonic (USA), led by Keitaro Harada for their opening night on Sept. 13, and on Sept. 19, The Hallé, in Lincoln UK, with Karen Ní Bhroin, one of Ireland’s foremost young conductors. We publish Bal Masqué on our Shop page!
Saturday, Sept. 13 is the Last Night of the Proms! As we’ve reported, Elim Chan will be only the third woman to conduct the famed Last Night. The concert also includes premieres of two short commissioned works by women, Rachel Portman and Camille Pépin. More info (including live broadcast options) are here.
On Sept. 12 and 13 the Vancouver Symphony performs Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres). Mazzoli discusses the work here (when it was performed by the NY Phil in 2022). And here is a performance from 2020,by the ASU Symphony Orchestra led by Jeffery Meyer!
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid has an exciting September, as the LA Phil gave the west coast premiere of her orchestral work Body Cosmic at the Hollywood Bowl on September 4. And on Sept. 27 the LA Phil gives the world premiere of Reid’s Earth Between Oceans. The work is a special commission for Gustavo Dudamel’s final season with the orchestra.
On September 12th, Sony Classical releases Fortissima, the new double album by cellist Raphaela Gromes with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO), led by by Anna Rakitina. The first album features compositions for cello and piano by Henriëtte Bosmans, Victoria Yagling, Emilie Mayer, Mélanie Bonis, and Luise Adolpha Le Beau, topped off by an arrangement of All I Ask by Adele. The second half features cello concertos by Maria Herz and Marie Jaëll, a ballade for cello and orchestra by Elisabeth Kuyper, two newly composed orchestral works Femmage I and Femmage II by Rebecca Dale, with a final bon-bon of an orchestral arrangement of P!NK’s Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken.
Complementing the album is the new book (in German) Fortissma: Supressed Female composers and How they Changed my View of the World, by Gromes with musicologist Susanne Wosnitzka.
We hope you are having a great week! info@wophil.org