Pittsburgh Opera celebrating women composers in March
March is Women’s History Month and the Pittsburgh Opera is celebrating with a free concert featuring works by women composers on its YouTube Channel March 26 at 7 p.m.
The event, called “Women’s March,” is a 55-minute concert spanning 900 years of classical music composed by women.
But how is it possible to include so much music in under an hour?
“It’s a bit of a retrospective, where we feature either one or a handful of short works by each of these composers, not their entire creative output,” said Christian Cox, Pittsburgh Opera director of marketing and communications. “Think of it as a survey course, where we feature some of the greatest hits from each of these wonderful composers over time.”
Among those featured are Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Alma Mahler and Clara Schumann, all musicians and composers who were overshadowed by their famous husbands; Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, a Scottish musician and scholar who preserved traditional songs from the Gaelic-speaking islands of Scotland; and Rebecca Clarke, a British-American composer and viola player who was one of the first women to be a professional member of an orchestra.
Other American women composers to have their works featured are Margaret Bonds, a Chicago-born Black composer who was the first Black artist to perform as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony in 1933; and Lori Laitman, a contemporary American composer who set the poetry of Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver to music.
“These composers have given us more than just beautiful music, they have used their talent and tenacity to ensure women have a place in the world of classical music,” said Pittsburgh Opera Manager of Community Engagement Rebekah Diaz.
“They’ve had to navigate an industry and a world where women were not always respected as much as their male colleagues, but they chose to raise up their voices so that others could be heard.”
People can register online for “Women’s March” at pittsburghopera.org/march to receive emails with links to the free broadcast.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.