Two Gena Branscombe Project Scholarship Winners Meet

 

For six years The Gena Branscombe Project has awarded scholarships to up-and-coming Arts Administrators, Conductors and Composers.  Our winners have proven themselves as music scholars, conductors whose talents raise performance standards and leaders of organizations where they involve their local community to participate in the arts.  Most of all, they are caring people whose mission is to make the world a better place.

 One of our missions has been to stay in touch with our winners.  We meet them for breakfast, coffee or lunch when they are in New York City or Boston.  Wonderful conversations have taken place where we learn of their personal and professional goals.  We attend their concerts and events. 

One other joy in this mission is introducing the winners to one another.  Recently Damali Willingham (2020 Composer winner) and Braeden Weyhrich (2024 Conductor winner) met at Georgia State University where Braeden will be conducting her Master’s recital on Thursday, October 9^th which will include a Gena Branscombe piece.   The reason they met? 

 

Several years ago while a student at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Damali arranged Gena Branscombe’s orchestral work, “Festival Prelude – March” for wind ensemble.  They also conducted the work leading the Berklee Wind Ensemble in performance. 

Recently Damali traveled to Georgia where they met Braeden. Damali worked with the Georgia State University's Symphonic Wind Ensemble advising and coaching the musicians on the details and musical nuances of “Festival Prelude – March”.  What a great collaboration.

Two Gena Branscombe Scholarship winners working together and #BringingBackBranscombe”.  The Gena Branscombe Project could not be more proud of these talented musicians. 

#BringingBackBranscombe

Bringing Gena Branscombe Home - August 15, 2026

The Gena Branscombe Project along with One Eye Publications and the Picton United Church are happy to announce the "Bringing Gena Branscombe Home" concert. The concert will be held at the Picton United Church in Picton, Ontario on Saturday, August 15, 2026. We honor Miss Branscombe's Canadian heritage with a program of her Canadian compositions. We hope you will join us to celebrate Miss Branscombe's musical homecoming!

To say the very least, we are thrilled that Miss Branscombe's music will be heard once again in her beloved hometown of Picton.  Included in the program will be her songs with poetry by her mother Sara Allison Branscombe and Canadian poets Arthur Stringer and Katherine Hale.  Her piano pieces composed while living in Picton and scenes from her unfinished opera "Bells of Circumstance" will be performed.  

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Maestra Ruth Reinhardt

 

Over the years of writing my blog I have discovered and promoted women conductors.  It has been a joy learning about these women, their education, the path they took to get where they are, which orchestras and opera companies they have conducted and more.  Each time I find a new woman conductor I want to write about her and share her on my blog.  Words are my way of promoting these wonderful musicians.

 

Ruth Reinhardt has been appointed Music Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra.  She is the fifth music director in this orchestra’s  80 year history and the first woman conductor to hold the position! 

 With a deep interest in promoting late 20^th century and early 21^st century European women composers she has conducted works by Grażyna Bacewicz, Kaiija Saariaho, Lottta Wennäkoski as well as Daniel Bjarnsason and Thomas Ades.  She has not forgotten the symphonic greats leading orchestras in performances of Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, Stravinsky and Bartok!

 

Studying violin and composition in Zurich, she furthered her conducting studies at Juilliard under the tutelage of Alan Gilbert and James Ross.  For two seasons she was assistant conductor with the Dallas Symphony and a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 

 

Maestra Reinhardt has conducted the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony. Stockholm Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic and many more! 

 

Her inaugural concert with the Rhode Island Philharmonic is  Friday, September 19^th when she conducts Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture,” Billy Childs “Diaspora: Concerto for Saxophone” featuring Steven Banks, and ending the concert with Brahms, “Symphony No. 4.”

 

Congratulations to Maestra Ruth  Reinhardt and wishing her many years of wonderful music experiences with the Rhode Island Philharmonic. 

#BringingBackBranscombe

 

Florence Macbeth, Coloratura Soprano

 

The summer of 2023 I completed transcribing what I thought were all of Miss Branscombe’s letters to her publisher, Arthur P. Schmidt.  As I wrote in my blog of that July, it was a journey of dedication to her legacy as well as an eye-opening learning experience of her humanity, business acumen and musical genius.  Also in those letters her every day life of emotions, ups and downs, raising children, losing her husband and two daughters came alive. 

One problem arose as I transcribed the letters from 1910-1954, somehow I had missed scanning the years 1921 and 1922.  Well, we’re all human when under time constraints.  I missed those two years.

My recent trip to the Library of Congress allowed me the time to right my mistake.  I scanned the folders of letters from 1921 and 1922.  Returning home I began to transcribe those two years of letters. Doing so allows me to travel back to that era, imagining her life’s experience at that moment and I read with interest Mr. Austin’s replies.  Mr. Austin worked for the Arthur P. Schmidt Company.   In the years leading up to and following the death of Mr. Schmidt in 1921 he was the main correspondent to all of the composers the Schmidt Company published.

 In her letter dated September 1, 1921, Gena requests that Mr. Austin send soprano Florence Macbeth a copy of her song, “The Best is Yet to Be” in the high key.  I stopped typing as I had never heard of Florence Macbeth.  Who was she?  Relying on a quick Google search, I learned Florence Macbeth (1889-1966) was born in Mankato, Minnesota, a place where her musical training began at an early age  which led to an international career.

 She became a star at the Chicago Opera Company and the Metropolitan Opera.  Her high coloratura voice has been reported as being effortless with an ability to move between her lowest register to her highest notes without a break in sound.  She concertized regularly in Europe and the United States.

What’s interesting about Miss Branscombe’s 1921 letter is three years prior to that letter, Florence Macbeth made her New York City Aeolian Hall debut in March 1918.  On that program she performed songs of women composers of the day including Mana Zucca, Harriet Ware, Rosalie Hausman and Gena Branscombe.  These women composers were friends, colleagues and well known in their era.  The New York Times reviewer highly praised Miss Macbeth for her choice of an artistic recital of charming songs! 

Here is yet another famous singer who over 100 years ago performed Miss Branscombe’s music on her concert tours.  How did Gena and Florence meet?  How did they connect for Gena to introduce or give Florence her songs and then have her perform them?  Questions are unanswered!

#BringingBackBranscombe

Lauren Koszyk, David Carlton Adams, Laura Clapp - The Gena Branscombe Project's 2025 Scholarship winners

 Here are the winners of the 2025 Gena Branscombe Project scholarships.  Read their bios and see what a talented group of people won the scholarships.  

Lauren Koszyk is an arts administrator, collaborative pianist, and educator based in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, pursuing her Master of Business Administration in Music Business and Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano at the University of North Texas. She works with leading arts organizations including the Cliburn, Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy, and the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society, and she serves as Assistant Artistic Director for CollabFest, the first international conference dedicated exclusively to collaborative piano. As an educator she cultivates inclusive, empowering learning environments and was named a 2023 Top Piano Teacher by Steinway & Sons. As a pianist, she has performed across Austria, Canada, Italy, and the United States, including engagements with Illinois Festival Opera, Midwest Institute of Opera, Musiktheater Bavaria, Opera on Site Inc., Opera Seme, and University of North Texas Opera.

David Adams is a composer, performer, teacher, and organizer who composes, performs, and presents new instrumental, vocal, and electronic music spanning contemporary chamber music, opera, improvisation, rock, and more. A doctoral student of composition at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, David teaches music theory at Peabody and has one year left in his doctorate. His works have been performed by leading new music ensembles, sometimes featuring David as a singer, electronicist, or fretless electric guitarist. A co-founder of New Uncertainty Collective, he builds creative relationships and fosters musical community while trying to help the world toward becoming a little healthier and a little more whole.

Laura Clapp is a graduate student in choral conducting at the University of Michigan, where she directs the university’s prison outreach choir, Out of the Blue. Prior to graduate studies, Laura worked with Voices of Hope, a Minneapolis-based prison choir organization, as a recipient of the Yale Glee Club Service Through Music Fellowship. While in Minnesota, Laura also co-directed StreetSong, a choir for people who have experienced homelessness, and directed the choir at Peace United Methodist Church. Laura has served as a soprano and teaching artist with Border CrosSing and currently plays violin in a string quartet at U-M. During her time as an undergraduate student at Yale, Laura served as a student conductor of the Yale Glee Club and a researcher for the New Muses Project, contributing to their database of women and BIPOC composers.

Among a large group of highly qualified applicants, these winners stood out for their clear dedication to the mission outlined by The Gena Branscombe Project: promoting equity and inclusivity in music. Each will receive a $400 cash prize and recognition across the web.

CONGRATULATIONS, ALL!

#BringingBackBranscombe

The Gena Branscombe Project 2025 Scholarship Winners

And, The Gena Branscombe Project 2025 Scholarship winners are:

Lauren Koszyk - Arts Administration

David Carlton Adams - Composer

Laure Clapp - Conductor

Congratulations to these talented and dedicated people!  

 #BringingBackBranscombe

Library of Congress- Music Reading Room - Gloves

 

Walking into the Library of Congress Music Reading Room on Monday, August 4th, this was the scene at the request counter.....research gloves hung out to dry.

Brittle, old and deteriorating paper manuscripts, scores, pictures and articles often must be preserved and protected by wearing white gloves.  Human hands with their natural oils and hand cream could make these treasured items weaken or fall apart, thus the gloves.

Over the weekend, these gloves had been washed and were now drying on the counter top.  Visiting researchers would be wearing the gloves in the next few hours.

Ah, the life of a researcher!

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