U of A Debuts Inaugural Women's Music Festival in March

University of Arkansas

SHE, A Festival of Women in Music will present a series of musical events throughout the month of March in celebration of Women's History Month.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Department of Music in the University of Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences will host an inaugural, month-long festival starting March 5 that highlights the major role that women have played in the art of music.

SHE, A Festival of Women in Music will recognize women across the field with an array of music featuring women composers and performers.

“Music often breaks down the barriers that separate us,” said Ronda Mains, chair of the Department of Music. “SHE makes room for audiences to hear new sounds, to feature composers of fame and lesser-known stature, and to amplify exceptional stories — all drawing attention to compositions by women, works inspired by women, and music for women.”

Mains said the festival will also cross borders, evoke an emotional response, and prompt historical and cultural memories for the audience.

The festival features guest lectures, performances of Western art music and contemporary music, and a one-woman play.

The festival’s full schedule includes:

• In Collaboration: A Collage Concert Featuring U of A Music Faculty
  7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 5
  Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center 
  This collage concert will feature the women of the Department of Music faculty. A variety of genres and compositions will be performed with selections by Andrea Clearfield, Margaret Garwood, Grażyna Bacewicz, Lori Laitman, Rhonda Larson and more. The concert kicks off the month-long celebration with over a dozen faculty performers. Tickets are $10 for general admission; $5 for faculty, staff and students; and $5 for seniors. Purchase tickets in advance.
• U of A Soul Band Tribute to Women in Contemporary Music
  7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 6
  Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall 
  The U of A Soul Band, under the direction of instructor Jake Hertzog, gives a tribute concert with music by Aretha Franklin and The Supremes, from jazz to pop and beyond, the Soul Band will give a high-energy performance highlighting the vibrant voices of women in contemporary music genres. This event is free.
• Guest Lecture: Susan Milan
  6 p.m. Thursday, March 7
  Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center 
  Milan’s talk will draw on her experiences as the first woman to hold a principal spot in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and use them as a jumping off point to consider how gender shapes the professional lives of orchestral musicians. She will address changes in orchestras with regard to gender over the past few decades and offer insights from her efforts to navigate the competing demands of professional and family life. This event is free.
• The Other Mozart
  7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7
  Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center 
  Sylvia Milo’s award-winning The Other Mozart is the true, untold story of Nannerl Mozart, the sister of Amadeus. She was a prodigy, keyboard virtuoso and composer, who performed throughout Europe with her brother to equal acclaim, but her work and her story faded away, lost to history. The one-woman drama is set in and on a magnificent 18-foot dress, created to fill and spill over the entire stage. Tickets are $20 for general admission; $10 for faculty, staff and students; and $15 for seniors. Tickets can be purchased in advance here.
• Guest Artist Recital: Susan Milan
  7:30 p.m. Friday, March 8
  Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center 
  Multi-album recording artist and world-renowned flutist Susan Milan will perform a selection of pieces that include works by Philippe Gaubert, Georg Philipp Telemann, Richard Rodney Bennett and Robert Muczynski, with featured composers Anne Boyd, Katherine Hoover and Cécile Chaminade. Tickets are $10 for general admission; $5 for faculty, staff and students; and $5 for seniors. Tickets can be purchased in advance here.
• Blue— Dreams, Nights…: Miroslava Panayotova
  3 p.m. Sunday, March 10
  Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall 
  The centerpiece of this all-piano program is a set of pieces from Blue As In My Dreams by Kim Osteen-Petreshock. U of A pianist Miroslava Panayotova will also perform a series of musical portraits dedicated to legendary women; these include works by Mel Bonis; The Dream Rags of William Albright; and Fandango by Candlelight by Enrique Granados. This event is free.
• Her Voice: Theresa Delaplain
  7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 14
  Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall 
  Oboist Theresa Delaplain’s concert includes music written by women and music about women, including works by Julianna Hall, Madeleine Dring, Alyssa Morris, and a world premiere of Her Voice for oboe d’amore and piano by U of A University Symphony Orchestra conductor and music theory instructor Robert Mueller. The recital will also include a multi-media presentation of a work for oboe, including pre-recorded sounds, digital delay and visual projection. Collaborating artists include Tomoko Kashiwagi, Hyun Kim, Ronda Mains, Moon-Sook Park and Robert Mueller. This event is free.
• Music By, For and About Women: Moon-Sook Park
  7:30 p.m. Friday, March 29
  Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall 
  Soprano Moon-Sook Park will perform an eclectic program, including a collaborative presentation of music by Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Lori Laitman, Sunae Kim, Young-Lan Park, Stephen Caldwell, Richard Strauss, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Andrew Beall, with a world premiere work – lonhontsa:te (“Mother Earth” in the Mohawk language) for soprano and cello – written for Park by GRAMMY-nominated cellist and vocalist Dawn Avery. Park will be joined by Hyun Kim on piano, Nikola Radan on flute, Dominic K. Na on cello, and Christopher Scherer on marimba. This event is free.
• Women’s Voices: A Collage Concert by U of A Music Students
  7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 30
  Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall 
  This concert features compositions written by women composers including Fanny Cecile Mendelssohn Hensel, Erin Goad, Caroline Schliecher Krämer, Lori Laitman, and U of A composition student Elizabeth Greener. This event is free.

SHE is sponsored by Adventure Subaru of Fayetteville and presented in partnership with the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Humanities Program, the Jim and Joyce Faulkner Performing Arts Center, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Arkansas.

More information about this event can be found on the Department of Music’s website. 

About the Department of Music: Fulbright College’s Department of Music, accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music since 1951, has been a chartered member of Pi Kappa Lambda since 1984. Home to over 300 music majors and minors and 35 graduate students, the department has a faculty of 50 nationally and internationally recognized scholars, pedagogues and musicians. We offer bachelor and master level degrees and an intensive one-year performer’s certificate. We are an All-Steinway School, and offer students a number of ensembles, many of which have toured nationally and internationally.

About the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences: The J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is the largest and most academically diverse unit on campus with three schools, 16 departments and 43 academic programs and research centers. The college provides the core curriculum for all University of Arkansas students and is named for J. William Fulbright, former university president and longtime U.S. senator.