The 2014 festival is nearly here! In less than two weeks Charter Oak Cultural Center will be filled with concerts and presentations. Be sure to check out the program schedule to attend the events you want to (we hope to see you the whole weekend!). Want to buy tickets in advance? They’re available at Eventbrite (and also at the door). Join us Thursday, March 6, for four days of wonderful programming.
Program details for the upcoming 2014 festival are online. Be sure to check the site for further information regarding ticket sales, places to stay, and things to do in Hartford!
Details can be found here.
The Women Composers Festival of Hartford is pleased to announce Jenni Brandon (Long Beach, CA) as the winner of its 2014 International Composition Competition along with Eun Sook Baek (Hartford, CT) and Sookyung Sul (Pittsburgh, PA) as competition finalists. Charles Huang of Oboe Duo Agosto is performing Ms. Brandon’s winning work, In the City at Night, on Friday, March 7th. Oboe Duo Agosto will program the work, along with Ocean with Covered Cloud (Baek) and Mool, Baram (Sul), on additional concerts over the next three years. Ms. Brandon joins resident composer Andrea Clearfield on Friday’s program as part of the festival’s four day event schedule – Thursday, March 6, to Sunday, March 9, at the historic Charter Oak Cultural Center. Information on concert tickets and festival events is available at www.womencomposersfestivalhartford.com.
Jenni Brandon is an award-winning composer whose music has been commissioned by ensembles and performed in venues across the world. Among the ensembles that have performed her works are the Musical Arts Quintet, Yale Glee Club, The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists, UT Arlington Wind Symphony, Conundrum, the Young New Yorkers Chorus, Vox Femina, the Sundance Trio, and Voices of Ascension. Ms. Brandon also makes guest composer appearances across the country, frequently giving talks on the business of music and musician collaboration. She is the music director of The Concert Singers, the oldest independent choir in Los Angeles, and often makes guest appearances to conduct her works with other ensembles. Active also as a mezzo-soprano, she has appeared with the Boston Pops, Pacific Chorale, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and at the Hollywood Bowl. Information on her music and a complete bio can be found at www.jennibrandon.com.
The festival was pleasantly overwhelmed by the volume of submissions to both its International Composition Competition and regional score calls. Results for the remaining New England and NYWC score calls shall be announced shortly.
This year’s score calls and composition competition are in full swing and we’re happy to see all the submissions so far. Have a recent wind quintet for performance? Send it along! Looking to enter the competition for double reed duos? We can’t wait to see your scores!
In the meantime, we’re checking in with our former competition winners. Where are they now? What are they up to? Now its fourth year, the competition has had quite a varied group of winners including Sang Mi Ahn, a doctoral candidate at Indiana University whose blend of electronic and acoustic works have garnered numerous international awards; Karen Power, an Irish composers whose output inhabits stunning soundscapes across the globe (currently making her way through the Arctic Circle of all places); and Anna Rubin, whose richly layered music creates amazing orchestral and electronic narratives.
Look for more details in the coming months on these amazing composers, along with others who have shared their music with the festival. And keep sending those scores!
Rather than wrap up the week with more photos of past festival, this week is an opportunity to remind everyone of the recent news regarding 2014. First, be sure to read up on Andrea Clearfield, our guest composer for March. We’re excited to be featuring her music and look forward to her presenting at the festival’s events. Additionally, anyone interested in submitting music to the upcoming festival should check out the multiple score calls available. We look forward to looking through all the works being sent.
