In this stunning season-opening concert, the Portland Piano Trio will perform pieces by some of their favorite composers. (Spoiler alert: this concert features women playing music by women!)
“One of today’s finest composers was a compositional late bloomer. Jennifer Higdon wrote her first pieces in college and went on to win the 2010 Pulitzer Prize (for her Violin Concerto) and two Grammy Awards (for her Percussion Concerto and Viola Concerto). She has been praised as “a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit.” -Classical California KUSC
“From an early age Clara's prodigious talent at the piano was esteemed throughout Europe. Her talent at the keyboard attracted fellow composer Robert Schumann, and the pair married in 1840.
Clara continued to perform throughout her life, but her skills as a composer were never fully realised. Balancing her husband's mental instability, the pressures of a solo career, and a family of eight children put pressure on her time, but she still managed to create many important works: her Piano Concerto, Piano Trio and songs set her apart as one of the most talented - if not one of the most overlooked - composers of the era.
Clara was unsure if she should continue to write music because she was a woman. She said: "A woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?"- Classic FM
Elena Ruehr says of her music “the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex.” And from Gramophone Magazine, “The sound world is wholly Ruehr: it never sounds like anyone else and the effect is exhilarating…her output is unified by her desire to communicate effectively without compromise…” An award winning faculty member at MIT, she has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute and composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Known for her vocal music and collaboration with poets, she has written five operas, five cantatas and a number of songs. She has also written extensively for orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance and silent film. Her work has been performed internationally and described as “sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies” (The New York Times), and “unspeakably gorgeous” (Gramophone).
This concert will be held at Portland Conservatory, 28 Neal Street, Portland, ME. Parking available in lot or on street.
Free and Open to the Public! No tickets or reservations necessary.
