“Women composers and performers are the focus of the Albany Symphony Orchestra’s season, which opens Saturday,” writes Geraldine Freeman in Thursday’s (10/17) Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY). The opening-night concert will include “the local premiere of Valerie Coleman’s ‘Phenomenal Women’ with the Imani Winds… woodwind quintet. The work premiered in 2018, and was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the American Composers Orchestra. The work is in five movements, with each dedicated to a woman of color who has overcome adversity: the poet Maya Angelou; tennis great Serena Williams; NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson; former first lady Michelle Obama; and Olympic gold medalist boxer Claressa Shields.… ‘Each movement is like a miniature concerto,’ said music director David Alan Miller. ‘It’s an unusual and wonderful idea.’ ” On opening night at the Arcade Building, “principal trumpet Eric Berlin’s photography will be displayed. Over the years he’s shot pictures of the orchestra, the guest artists and the halls the orchestra has performed in. This is a curated show of 85 of his prints, which have also been gathered into a book. [On] Nov. 9 … theremin player Carolina Eyck will give the world premiere of Dalit Warshaw’s ‘Sirens—a Concerto for Theremin.’ ”
Posted October 18, 2019
