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Music by Cara Haxo roars at The Bop Stop

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by Kevin McLaughlin

“She ROARS!,” a series celebrating living female composers, devoted its program at the Bop Stop on Sunday afternoon, May 31, to nine works by Cara Haxo performed by violinists Diana Pepelea Vardi and Callista Koh, violist Lauren Kuennen Poper, cellist Linda Atherton, flutist Linda White, and clarinetist Amitai Vardi.

Haxo’s use of varied instrumental combinations offered a glimpse into her creative process and Emily Laurance’s spoken introductions helped listeners understand the composer’s train of thought.

The opening work for string quartet, says the almanac (2024), inspired by Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Sestina,” showed Haxo’s gift for turning literary structure into musical form. [Read more…]

Composers Guild & Cleveland Chamber Choir join forces (Apr. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the Cleveland Composers Guild added the requirement of writing a vocal piece to its collegiate composition contest in 2019 and generated only a single entry — impressive as that piece was — the idea was born for dedicating an entire year to vocal music.

The choral side of that theme came to fruition on Sunday, April 2 in Drinko Hall at Cleveland State University, when the Guild collaborated with Cleveland Chamber Choir in a program designed and led by CCC acting director Gregory Ristow that successfully combined new pieces by Northeast Ohio composers with existing works, and in one case brought a new wrinkle to a well-known choral cycle.

[Read more…]

Local 4 Music Fund brings women composers and new music to the forefront with She Scores

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by Stephanie Manning

When the Institute for Composer Diversity analyzed the 2019-20 seasons of 120 American orchestras, it found that just eight percent of all pieces performed were composed by women. For Amber Rogers, artistic director of the Local 4 Music Fund, data like this combined with her own experiences as a violist inspired her latest project — one she’s been thinking about for a long time.

“The idea of concerts featuring female composers isn’t new, but I didn’t see anything quite like this in Cleveland,” Rogers said in a recent interview. “I’ve wanted to do something like this for about a decade.” After almost two years of preparation, her dream will soon be realized through She Scores, a series of three concerts from June 25-27. Livestreamed on Facebook and Local 4’s website, the performances will feature works by sixteen women composers in a variety of musical styles and ensemble configurations.

[Read more…]

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