Music Meets Drama

  Get to know The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2026 Conductor scholarship winner, Valentina Paolucci! She is a rising orchestral conductor and violinist currently based in New York City.   A recent graduate from the Juilliard School with a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting, she was awarded the Robert Craft-Igor Stravinsky Conducting Award upon graduation. Valentina is currently a Conducting Fellow with The Chelsea Symphony and Music Director of the NYO-USA Alumni Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. (Valentina with her winner's coffee mug) Valentina spent several weeks this summer at the Domaine Forget Académie internationale de musique et de danse in Saint-Irénée, Quebec being inspired with beautiful music making and learning from world renowned conductors Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Kensho Watanabe. The culmination of her weeks of lessons and coachings was the honor of conducting the Orchestre Métropolitain in the final concert.  Completing her weeks in Canada, she quickly lef...

  Receiving this envelope with Dan Ryan’s message to me…..well…there are not enough words to describe how it touched my heart and what it meant to me after many years of working on the music and life of Gena Branscombe.   That envelope held programs from the “From Picton to the World: Bringing Home the Music of Gena Branscombe” concert.  Only after leaving Picton did I realize I had not picked up extra programs for my own archive.  Thanks to Dan’s sister, who was making a trip to New York City, I was handed the envelope!  And, there was this message….which speaks of the very essence of Dan Ryan.  (By the way, Alexis is Dan’s wife and Sagan is their adorable dog.) Working with Dan, my friend and colleague, over the past eight years has been a privilege and blessing.  Dan is a high energy, creative and brilliant ideas person.  He leaves me in wonderment as to how I was blessed to have him as Co-Founder of The Gena Branscombe Project.  It wa...

 

  A week spent in Picton, Ontario, Gena Branscombe’s hometown, was a week spent immersing ourselves in Gena’s history.   Whether it was donating items to the museum, being in the Picton United Church where her family was members, or walking the streets realizing that many of the buildings and homes were in existence while she grew up; we were in her space!  In early July an email from Diane Berlet of the St. Alban’s Centre in Adolphustown arrived in my inbox.   Just a short drive and ferry ride from Picton, Diane invited The Gena Branscombe Project people to the St. Alban’s Centre for a guided tour of the Centre, previously a church.   Diane’s narration described the importance of the church and surrounding area to Gena’s family.   Her mother’s extended family, the Allisons, were settlers who received parcels of land for farming and were members of the church.   An added reason for our invitation was to see the candlestick holder and plaque over the ...