Festival organizers and musicians smile for the camera at the 2011 Benefit Concert. Aren’t they a good looking bunch?
If you’d like to get involved with the Festival, please contact Daniel Morel at daniel@womencomposersfestivalhartford.com. We are always looking for enthusiastic music-lovers to join our team, and planning is already underway for 2013!
Festival Director Daniel Morel chats with Patrice Fitzgerald, Mattie Banzhaf, Sheri Brown, and other participants at the 2011 Benefit Concert. Thanks to Patrice for hosting this event in her gorgeous home!
How about a little Christmas in July? The next few featured photos come from our 2011 Benefit Concert. Despite being postposed due to last October’s surprise blizzard, the concert – held in December instead – was a great success. Talented musicians from around Hartford presented music that has been performed on previous festivals and previewed works from future events. Today’s photo shows Sheri Brown performing on the alto saxophone.
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.
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.
