News Updates – Page 18

2014 Festival and Guest Composer Andrea Clearfield

Hartford, CT – August 1, 2013 – The Women Composers Festival of Hartford announces its 2014 festival scheduled for Thursday, March 6, to Sunday, March 9, at the historic Charter Oak Cultural Center. Andrea Clearfield joins the festival as guest composer, featuring the Philadelphia-based composer in multiple events. The festival includes performances of Dr. Clearfield’s music, in addition to an international selection of historical and living women composers. For additional information, visit www.womencomposersfestivalhartford.com.

Andrea Clearfield is an award-winning composer of music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, dance, and multimedia collaborations. She has been praised by the New York Times for her “graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing”, the Philadelphia Inquirer for her “compositional wizardry” and “mastery with large choral and instrumental forces”, by the L.A. Times for her “fluid and glistening orchestration” and by Opera News for her music of “timeless beauty”. Dr. Clearfield has been awarded fellowships from the American Composers Forum at the American Academy in Rome, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center and Civitella Ranieri in Italy and Fundaciòn Valparaiso in Spain. She was awarded a 2012 Fellowship at Montalvo in California and 2013 residencies at Moulin à Nef in France and the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM. Other awards include fellowships at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is founder and host of the renowned Philadelphia Salon concert series now completing its 26th year featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic, dance, and world music and winner of Philadelphia Magazine’s 2008 “Best of Philadelphia” award. As composer-in-residence, she is speaking at The Hartt School’s Institute for Contemporary American Music and Central Connecticut State University’s Music Forum. Information on her music and a complete bio can be found at www.andreaclearfield.com.

The Women Composers Festival of Hartford has, for the last thirteen years, provided an enriching platform for the promotion of women’s music. Recognized as a champion of women’s music by institutions such as the International Alliance for Women in Music and the Women’s Education and Leadership Fund, the festival’s goals include fostering music by female composers, living and historical, through performances, outreach, and development.

Festival details, and programming specifics are available at www.womencomposersfestivalhartford.com. For more information email info@womencomposersfestivalhartford.com.

Weekly Picture Post

Here it is again folks! The weekly Picture Post.

Here are some pictures from a few of the wonderful concerts of the 2013 Festival. Above is the Dahlia flute duo. They were the featured guest artists this year. The piece they are playing in this picture was the Score Call winning piece Consulting the Oracle by Anna Rubin. The piece featured the two floutists playing and dancing while being encircled by candles.

The picture on the left is from Hartt Saxophone Studio concert. The concert featured all music by this year’s guest composer Hilary Tann. The piece being played here is Of the Earth for Saxophone, Flute, and Percussion. The picture on the right is from the Concert Pro Femina. The program featured works by important historic female composers. Below Monika Krajewski is singing a song by Pauline Viardot.

Check back for more pictures next week!

Picture Post

Hello All!

We cannot thank you enough for all of your support in helping us to make this year’s Festival so wonderfully successful. One of the highlights of this year’s program of lectures and concerts was the WCForum. For the entire day, from 9am till 6pm, there were seminars and lectures. The variety of topics was astounding. From theoretical analysis to compositional techniques, there was something there to interest everyone. Here are a couple of pictures from that day for you to enjoy. More will be coming soon!

Pictured from left to right: Left “Penny Brandt speaking on Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo Respighi at the 2013 WCForum.” Center “Mary Matthews and Nicole Chamberlain discuss performer/composer relationships at the 2013 WCForum.” Right “Hilary Tann talks on the nature of composition at the 2013 WCForum.”

2013 Festival in Pictures

Another wonderful festival this year with so many incredible performances and events.

And so many PICTURES! We couldn’t wait to start sharing them (and there are so many great highlights) so enjoy these few. They’re just the tip of the iceberg!

Today’s photos are a few highlights from the festival’s first day-long conference presenting papers and research on various topics related to women composers, historical and living, and their music. The full list of presenters included Michele Aichele, Penny Brandt, Stephanie Lind, Katherine Eberle, David Pearson, Tatev Amiryan, Julia Mortyakova, Mary Matthews, Melissa Wertheimer, Nichole Chamberlain, Jessica Rudman, and guest-composer Hilary Tann.

Penny Brandt (piano) and Coralie Gallet (soprano)

Penny Brandt presented her paper, Listening for Elsa’s Voice: Influences and Styles of Three Songs by Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo (Respighi), which included research on Elsa’s music and her relationship with Ottorino Respighi. The talk included a performance of Elsa’s songs by Penny and Coralie Gallet.

Melissa Wertheimer, Mary Matthews, and Nicole Chamberlain (L to R)

The Dahlia Flute Duo and Nicole Chamberlain discussed building composer/performer relationships in the course of building respective careers.

David Pearson

David Pearson discussed the use of poetic form and other pitch and rhythm processes found in Crawford’s music in his talk The Poetic Sensibility of Ruth Crawford’s Diaphonic Suite No. 1. The talk included a performance of Crawford’s Diaphonic Suite No. 1 by David on saxophone.

Concert Tonight Rescheduled

Hello,

As you may know, scheduled for tonight at the Charter Oak Cultural Center was a concert of works featuring the Dahlia Flute Duo. Due to the weather, Charter Oak will be closed tonight and the concert has been rescheduled for next Saturday, March 16th, at 7pm. We strongly urge you to mark this in your calendar and come out to see the concert at its new time.

Tomorrow’s events will continue as planned with the WCForum going on all day at the University of Hartford, and concluding with a concert at the Unitarian Society. Thank you for your patience and understanding in these unfortunate circumstances. We hope to see you soon!