Music Meets Drama

  In late March I received an e-mail asking me to review pianist Jennifer King’s recording, Souvenance .   I highly recommend listening to this recording, not just once, but many, many times. Congratulations to Jennifer on a beautiful presentation of Romances, Nocturnes and a Meditation composed by eight women composers. https://www.jenniferkingpiano.com/ https://lnk.to/souvenance You can buy or stream the recording on almost any platform.  Enjoy! Here’s my review: Nineteenth century French Impressionist painters created works of art depicting night.  Their use of darkly hued colors affects our senses.  Not to be outdone, French Impressionist composers took up the word “Nocturne” and began creating short works, that similar to the paintings, created the sense of night employing the colors a pianist infuses in their playing.  Jennifer King’s newly released CD; Souvenance is a delectable presentation of Nocturnes, Romances and a Meditation composed by ...

An e-mail from Allison Charney arrived in my mailbox asking me how to pronounce Gena Branscombe’s first name.   She went on to explain that with her colleague and friend, Donna Weng Friedman, the two would be hosting four one-hour radio shows featuring women composers entitled -   Her/Music:Her/Story.   The shows were broadcast on WQXR on four consecutive Friday evenings at 9 PM starting on September 13 th .    The first show celebrated the 200 th birthday of pianist/composer Clara Schumann (October 13, 1819 – 1896).   Allison and Donna took us on a journey discussing Clara’s life as a piano prodigy, wife to composer Robert Schumann, mother of eight children and composer.   Interspersed with their informative discussion were examples of Clara’s music - piano, instrumental and vocal.   The second broadcast was the Three B’s: Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Gena Branscombe (1881-1977) and Amy Beach (1867-1944).   How c...