The Gena Branscombe Project is sharing the video of my speech, "Bringing Back Branscombe: A Woman Composer Lost - Now Found." The speech was given at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music for their CCM Speaks showcase.
Enjoy listening to my 25 year journey working on the music and life of this wonderful woman composer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ibOhjsMh0
In late August my Bar Harbor friend, Dr. Bill Horner, flew to Lahti, Finland to attend the Sibelius Festival. Bill has become quite a Sibeliophile listening to the composer’s symphonies, tone poems and reading his biography. Bill shared the diary of his trip that included his review of the three Sibelius concerts he attended. Through his writing I learned of conductor Dalia Stasevska. Bill admits to not having the credentials of a music critic, yet, his review of Maestra Stasevska is quite accurate, I am sure; “her conducting style spot on: her baton arm marked a tempo that even I could follow, and her left made long sweeping motions that imparted her evident passion to both her orchestra and to me.”
Another woman
conductor has crossed my radar screen and one whose career is worth researching
and writing about on my blog!
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Dalia has been appointed the Chief Conductor of the Lahti
Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director to the International Sibelius
Festival. She is Principal Guest
Conductor to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, made her BBC Proms debut in 2019
and in 2023 conducted the First Night of the BBC Proms.
Below is the link to to that BBC Proms concert. She begins conducting around 2 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT9IwYfTr7E&t=234s
Maestra Stasevska has conducted concerts with the world’s
leading orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic,
Seattle Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic. Chicago
Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-OrchesterBerlin and the list goes on and on.
Opera conducting is another of her musical
passions leading productions at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Finnish National
Opera and with the Kungliga Opera Stockholm.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
bestowed on Dalia the Order of Princess Olga of the III Degree for her
contribution to international cooperation and upholding Ukraine’s prestigious historical
and cultural heritage. She and her brothers have actively
raised donations for supplies given to the Ukraine people, delivering them in person.
Dalia is married to the great grandson
of Jean Sibelius, Lauri Porra, who is a Finnish composer and musician. The couple has one child.
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Another brilliant woman conductor is on my radar. And, my thanks to my friend, Bill Horner, for making the trip to the Sibelius Festival!
#BringingBackBranscombe
Among conductor Xian Zhang’s many accomplishments are eight seasons of being Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. With the Philadelphia Orchestra she won a Grammy Award for the Deutsche Grammophon release Letters for Future. As guest conductor she has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Quite impressive!
#BringingBackBranscombe
In August 2011 I wrote of Gena Branscombe’s initiation and
membership in three professional fraternities, one of which was Zeta Tau
Alpha. Recently an article from “Themis
of Zeta Tau Alpha” dated November 1, 1941, came into my possession.
In the article are two pictures of Miss Branscombe that I have previously never seen. The picture of her holding a baton; with intensity she is in control ready to give a downbeat, her performers’ complete attention is obvious from the look in her eyes. Let the music ring forth. She is performance ready; she’s wearing a string of pearls!
The second picture was taken on the evening of her
initiation into Zeta Tau Alpha which took place in Edgewater Gulf,
Mississippi.
The article is biographical describing her family, education and career.
The glass ceiling for women conductors is being shattered this
summer when three women lead performances of Wagner’s operas at the Bayreuth Festival. YES!
In 2021, Ukrainian Oksana Lyniv became the first woman to conduct at Richard Wagner’s theatre, Bayreuth. Wagner initiated his company in 1876 ---- it only took 145 years for a woman to conduct there. Maestra Lyniv debuted conducting “Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman)” and has returned this summer to lead that same opera.
Simone Young, the first Australian conductor at Bayreuth,
will lead performances of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle.” She is the first woman to ever
perform those four wonderful operas at Wagner’s Bayreuth festival ---- 147
years after its founding.
French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann made her Bayreuth debut
in 2023 leading performances of “Tannhauser.”
She returns this summer to lead an open air concert and “Tannhauser.”
Congratulations to these three women conductors who have made an indelible mark on the music world. Thank you to Bayreuth for helping to shatter the glass ceiling for women conductors.
#BringingBackBranscombe
Congratulations and welcome to The Gena Branscombe Project's Board, Jessica Bloch. A music entrepreneur, wonderful soprano, voice teacher, performer and as you can tell, a real go-getter!
#BringingBackBranscombe
