Concert Details
Date: Saturday, March 5
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Flagg Road United Church of Christ, 134 Flagg Road, West Hartford, CT
The Concert Pro Femina is an exciting and varied evening of classical works by women which will include vocal and instrumental solos along with small chamber pieces.
Featured will be Suzanne Corey-Sahlin, principal Violist of the Ridgefield Symphony and the Norwalk Symphony, playing two movements of a sonata by Rebecca Clarke with pianist Gerald Steichen, conductor of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra and himself a versatile performer. Also featured will be this year’s Festival guest composer Gilda Lyons performing her own unaccompanied vocal work based on the poetry of Anne Sexton.
A women’s chamber choir, conducted by Unitarian Society of Hartford Director of Music Emeritus Mattie Banzhaf, will perform an ancient “Lauda” with a recently-composed trumpet fanfare. Also participating will be USH Interim Director Carolyn Halsted, playing her own solo piano piece, “Wings.”
Other pieces will include an unaccompanied trumpet solo by Hartt composer Jessica Rudman, a vocal duet with piano by Sylvia Goldstein, and vocal works from Hildegard von Bingen, Barbara Strozzi, Isabella Colbran, Alma Schindler Mahler, Francesca Caccini, Josephine Lang, Poldowski (Lady Dean Paul), Ruth Still, Betty Roe, and Jeanine Tesori.
Soloists will include well-known soprano and voice teacher Judith Milardo, Hartt junior and mezzo-soprano Dana Kephart, trumpet-player and baritone Richard Leslie, and Hartt graduate and mezzo-soprano Patrice Fitzgerald.
Join us for this wonderful celebration of music composed by women throughout the ages. A reception will follow the performance.