Although more women than ever before are becoming professional composers, orchestra concert programs continue to feature far more music composed by men. The New Albany Symphony Orchestra will buck that trend in a concert this weekend celebrating women composers and performers on International Day of the Girl.
The New Albany Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and New York-based violinist Isabelle Ai Durrenberger will perform The Singing Rooms Sunday, Oct. 11, at 3 p.m. in the McCoy Center for the Arts. Music Director Luis Biava will lead the musicians in Fanny Mendelssohn’s Overture in C Major, Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon’s The Singing Rooms.
The concert marks a return solo appearance with the New Albany Symphony for Durrenberger, who was raised in central Ohio and first performed with the orchestra in 2012 as winner of its Student Concerto Competition.
As an extension of their own celebration of International Day of the Girl, the Columbus School for Girls’ (CSG) Gold Key Ambassadors will greet audience members and introduce and hand out flowers to the performers.
“They are students who are really eager to share their experience in the school with others,” said Megan Smeeding, dean of students for CSG’s middle and upper school and director of the school’s Center of Girls’ and Young Women’s Leadership. “They really are some of the best representatives for our school.”
Heather Garner, founder and executive director of the New Albany Symphony Orchestra, says she has long wanted the New Albany Symphony Orchestra to perform a concert showcasing music by women composers.
“Men, even up until this point, have had more opportunity in this area of the industry. And I think making more opportunities available for women in this area is really important,” Garner said. “It just seemed like all the stars aligned for this (concert) to happen.”
The program for the concert coalesced over years. Garner learned of Florence Price’s concerto after the work had been discovered among a stash of musical manuscripts in an abandoned house outside Chicago. Price had composed the work in 1952, but it wasn’t until its public performance in 2018 that the work came to broad attention.
“I just found it fascinating that all this music had gone to sleep for 60 years or so, and then it was rediscovered,” Garner said.
An admirer of contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon’s music, Garner was intrigued by the unusual instrumentation of Higdon’s The Singing Rooms, for orchestra, chorus and solo violin.
Garner saw both Higdon’s work and Price’s concerto as potential solo vehicles for Durrenberger.
“I have never played either of these concertos, so it’s been definitely a big project getting to work on both of these pieces. I think two works that rarely get heard both together in the same place, it’s going to be incredible,” Durrenberger said.
Raised in Upper Arlington, Durrenberger began studying the violin at age 7 and furthered her studies during her high school and undergraduate years with noted violinist Jaime Laredo at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She completed graduate work under Soovin Kim and Donald Weilerstein at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music.
Beginning in February 2027, Durrenberger will serve as visiting professor at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, while continuing to teach at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, in Queens, New York, and through her own studio.
Though women’s music remains comparatively underperformed, the careers of Mendelssohn, Price and Higdon outline an arc of progress over time for women composers.
“Fanny Mendelssohn was told by her father that (composing) would not be for her, and her voice was shut down, in a way. Then Florence Price came in the picture, an African American woman who tried and tried and tried to get her works performed. Finally, her Symphony No. 1 was performed, and she became the first African American woman to have a piece performed by a (major American) orchestra. Then we have Jennifer Higdon, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning female. So, I think women have definitely evolved in this arena, from Fanny Mendelssohn’s day,” Garner said.
Durrenberger says she hopes that trend will continue.
“My biggest hope for the future is that girls can bring all their compassion, sensitivity, intellect and brightness into any room, and for that energy to be immediately met with a respect and weight equal to their male counterparts,” Durrenberger said. “I hope to help create spaces where women never need to harden or dampen themselves in order to be heard or seen.”
The New Albany Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and violinist Isabelle Ai Durrenberger will perform The Singing Rooms Sunday, Oct. 11, at 3 p.m. in the McCoy Center for the Arts, Luis Biava conducting. A sensory-friendly performance of the program will take place Saturday, Oct. 10 at 11:30 a.m.
