A Spotlight on the Femme

Chamber music, with a focus on the female perspective, joyously filled Hahn Hall at last week’s Music Academy of the West’s x2 Series performance. Curated by teaching artist Cynthia Phelps, Femme Focus explored works written, inspired, and performed by women.

First up in the program was Septuor Fantaisie ou Concerto, Op. 72 by Mel Bonis (1858-1937), whose history Phelps shared a bit about. French late-romantic composer Mélanie Hélène “Mel” Bonis’s life was “quite a soap opera.” Her early musical ambitions were stymied after an arranged marriage to a widower 25 years her senior with five children. She then went on to give birth to three children of her own. However, in time she was able to return to her love of music and devoted all of her energies to composition and eventually composed more than 300 compositions. 

“Sacred Women” by Jeff Scott (b. 1967) was up next, with women as the subject and intricate horn movements that included an unusual moment when the second horn left and played offstage in a call and response type of interaction with the first horn (played by Jesse Silverberg and Drew Patterson respectively).

The final piece of the evening was Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor, Op. 67 by Amy Beach (1867-1944), the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music (her Gaelic Symphony had its premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896). A child prodigy, Phelps explained that Beach had written “40 songs by the time she was 1,” and by age 6 she had a “full blown performing career.”

The musicians for the evening included a combination of Academy Fellows and professional teaching artists, with both the Bonis and the Beach arrangements performed by all-female groups. Excuse the pun, but all in all, Phelps put together an exceptionally well-composed evening of music. 

Performers for Septuor Fantaisie ou Concerto, Op. 72: Yelin Youn, Elízabeth Kleiber flutes; Helen Kim, Annie Pham violins; Cynthia Phelps viola; Esther Chae cello; Margaret McDonald piano

“Sacred Women”: Saeyeong Kim, Graeme Sugden flutes; Eugene Izotov, Jamie Yoojin Lee oboes; Richie Hawley clarinet; Jacob Glaser bass clarinet; William Short, Caleb Hutchings bassoons; Drew Patterson, Jesse Silverberg horns; William Long conductor

Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor, Op. 67: Hyesong Park, Sung In Cho violins; Cynthia Phelps viola; Ani Aznavoorian cello; Natasha Kislenko piano

The Music Academy of the West summer festival concludes this weekend with the Academy Festival Orchestra’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, on Saturday, August 9, at the Granada Theatre. See musicacademy.org/calendar for tickets and details.