2013 Festival

The Women Composers Festival of Hartford continues its annual tradition of celebrating the diversity of women’s music with five engaging concerts, March 2-9, 2013. Featuring Welsh-born composer, Hilary Tann, as this year’s composer-in-residence, the festival includes performances of historical and living women composers held across the Greater Hartford area.

Hilary Tann lives in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York where she is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College, Schenectady. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University. From 1982 to 1995 she held a number of Executive Committee positions with the International League of Women Composers and she was Composer-in-Residence at the 2011 Eastman School of Music Women in Music Festival. Praised for its lyricism and formal balance, her music is influenced by her love of Wales and a strong identification with the natural world. A deep interest in the traditional music of Japan has led to private study of the shakuhachi and guest visits to Japan, Korea, and China. Her compositions have been widely performed and recorded by ensembles such as the European Women’s Orchestra, Tenebrae, Lontano, Meininger Trio, Thai Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBCNOW, and KBS Philharmonic in Seoul, Korea. As composer-in-residence, she is speaking at The Hartt School’s Institute for Contemporary American Music, Central Connecticut State University’s Music Forum, the Musical Club of Hartford and other regional institutions. Information on her music and recordings can be found at www.hilarytann.com.

The Women Composers Festival of Hartford has, for the last twelve years, provided an educational and entertaining platform for the promotion of women’s music.  Recognized as a champion of women’s music by institutions such as Meet the Composer, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the Women’s Education and Leadership Fund, the festival’s goals include informing audiences through performances of music that has been and still is being written by women in an effort to broaden people’s understanding of musical literature and women’s contributions to this field.

 

Saturday, March 2

American Women in Music – 5:00PM
Berkman Recital Hall, The Hartt School
University of Hartford
200 Bloomfield Avenue
West Hartford, CT 06117

Read more about the Solo Vocal Works Concert…

 

Wednesday, March 6

ICAM Composer’s Seminar – 5:00PM
The Hartt School, Room 410/12
University of Hartford
200 Bloomfield Avenue
West Hartford, CT 06117

Read more about the ICAM Presentation…

 

Local Composers Concert – 7:30PM
Charter Oak Cultural Center
21 Charter Oak Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106

Read more about the Local Composers Concert…

 

Thursday – March 7

CCSU Music Forum – 3:00PM
Founders Hall
Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain, CT 06050

Read more about the CCSU Music Forum…

 

Music of Hilary Tann – 8:00PM
Berkman Recital Hall
University of Hartford
200 Bloomfield Avenue
West Hartford, CT 06117

Friday, March 8

Flute Works Concert – 7:30PM
Charter Oak Cultural Center
21 Charter Oak Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106

Read more about the Flute Works Concert…

 

Saturday, March 9

WCForum – 8:30AM-6:00PM
Wilde Auditorium
200 Bloomfield Avenue
West Hartford, CT 06117

Read more about the WCForum…

Concert Pro Femina – 7:30PM
Unitarian Society of Hartford
50 Bloomfield Avenue
Hartford, CT 06105

Read more about Concert Pro Femina…

 

 

Continuing our tradition of diversity in performance and outreach takes a great deal of resources. Please consider making a donation to support this effort. Read more about how you can donate.

Picture Wednesday – August 1, 2012

Han-Wei Lu looks on intently while playing Julia Werntz’s Five Vignettes. This delicate piece required a great deal of concentration yet Han-Wei, and Janet Jacobson on violin, made the work appear effortless.

Our next few pictures will focus on the amazing performers who lend their time and talent to make each concert a tour de force. In addition to lending her time to the festival, Han-Wei performs with new music ensembles such as 016 and the Saraswati Quartet.

Han-Wei playing 2011 Local Composers Concert

Picture of the Day – July 20, 2012

Here Elisabeth Tomczyk and Katie Cousins are featured performing a movement of Ellen O’Meara’s Orbits, for violin, clarinet, and piano, on the 2011 Local Composers Concert. A Brooklyn based composer and instrumentalist, Ms. O’Meara is a strong advocate of new music and her works can be found here.

Katie Cousins and Elisabeth Tomczyk

Picture of the Day – July 19, 2012

In addition to featuring a diverse array of musical styles, the Local Composers Concert also presents audiences interaction with the many composers living near Hartford. Here Tawnie Olson introduces her duo for bassoon and piano, À mon seul désir. Of the piece, Dr. Olson says:

This piece was inspired by Elizabeth Shoemaker, her skilled interpretation of Saint-Saëns’ Bassoon Sonata, and by an idea of marriage informed by my relationship with my own husband. At first the instruments seem to co-exist peacefully, but independently, but after a crisis material is passed back and forth between them. This dialogue incites the bassoon to jubilant virtuosity, and then the opening material returns; the piece has come full circle. The circle – the shape of a wedding ring and an ancient symbol of perfection – is also meant to be suggested by the piano part’s slow journey through its entire range. The title of this piece comes from the final Lady and the Unicorn tapestry, in the collection of the Musée de Cluny.

Recordings of Tawnie Olson’s music and updates on her projects can be found here.

Tawnie Olson presents her Music

Picture of the Day – July 18, 2012

An annual tradition for the festival, the Local Composers Concert displays the wide variety of musical styles and ideas present in just the tri-state area (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York). The following picture features Janet Jacobson and Han-Wei Lu performing the intricately microtonal “Five Vignettes” by Julia Werntz. A process of dividing the traditional Western scale, Julia describes her use of microtonality:

My method was just to seize the “new” pitches from in-between the “old” pitches of 12-note equal-temperament—60 new pitches in total—and to sing the intervals again and again until I had internalized a new microtonal, equal-tempered chromatic scale consisting of 72 pitches. Then I began developing a melodic technique, relying on certain aspects of my traditional musical training, while at the same time looking out for the peculiar new demands of the new intervals themselves, such as rhythm.

More info on Julia Werntz and her music can be found here.

Janet Jacobson and Han-Wei Lu