Music Meets Drama

  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 ...

  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 ...

 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 Illi...

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