Grand Rapids Symphony Celebrates Pioneering Female Composers

Classical music counts Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Gustav Mahler as among the greatest composers in history.

But Mozart and Mendelssohn both had sisters who also were talented musicians and composers. Same for the women that both Schumann and Mahler married. But music by Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler are little known. What music Marianne Mozart may have written has been lost. All we know of music composed by Mozart's sister, nicknamed "Nannerl," is an occasional mention in her younger brother's letters.

It wasn't until the 20th century that female composers entered the limelight.

Grand Rapids Symphony will conclude its 2018-19 Great Eras Series on Friday, May 3, with a concert titled The 20th/21st Century Concert: Celebrating Women featuring music by women plus a woman as guest soloist.

Associate Conductor John Varineau leads the Grand Rapids Symphony in music that shattered glass ceilings, composed by pioneering women who broke new ground and blazed new trails in music.

The 8 p.m. concert in St. Cecilia Music Center welcomes back to Grand Rapids trombonist Ava Ordman, who formerly spent 24 seasons as principal trombonist of the Grand Rapids Symphony in the early 1970s through the late 1990s.

A part of the Grand Rapids Symphony's PwC Great Eras series, the concert features music by American composers Ruth Crawford Seeger and Joan Tower and by British composer Anna Clyne, three women whose careers spanned more than a century from the early 20th century to the present.

Highlights of the evening concert will be given at 10 a.m. on Friday May 3 as The 20th/21st Century Coffee Concert. Part of the Porter Hills Coffee Classic series, the one-hour program is held without intermission. Doors open at 9 a.m. for complementary coffee and pastry.

The program is part of the Grand Rapids Symphony's efforts to highlight the work of contemporary composers as well as to draw attention to the work of overlooked composers. Next season, one of the Grand Rapids Symphony's Great Eras Series concerts will feature music by Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann in March 2020.

"The Grand Rapids Symphony is such a wonderful symphony, and we really do have something for everyone," said Music Director Marcelo Lehninger about the concert.

The complete The 20th/21st Century Concert: Celebrating Women program will be rebroadcast on Sunday, May 26, 2019, at 1 p.m. on Blue Lake Public Radio 88.9 FM or 90.3 FM.

Tickets start at $26 for the Great Eras series and $16 for Coffee Classics and are available at the Grand Rapids Symphony box office, weekdays 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across the street from Calder Plaza). Call (616) 454-9451 x 4 to order by phone. (Phone orders will be charged a $2 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum).

Tickets are available at the DeVos Place ticket office, weekdays 10 am - 6 pm or on the day of the concert at the venue beginning two hours before the performance. Tickets also may be purchased online at GRSymphony.org.

Organized in 1930, the Grand Rapids Symphony is nationally recognized for the quality of its concerts and educational programs. Led by Music Director Marcelo Lehninger, Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt and Associate Conductor John Varineau, nine concert series in a wide range of musical and performance styles plus educational and community outreach programs combine to offer more than 400 performances per year, touching the lives of some 200,000, nearly half of whom are students, senior citizens or people with disabilities. Affiliated organizations include the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus; Grand Rapids Youth Symphony; and Grand Rapids Symphony Youth Chorus as well as the biennial the Grand Rapids Bach Festival, which returns in 2019. GRS collaborates annually with Opera Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Ballet and semiannually with the Gilmore Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo.

To post a comment, you must register and login.