The Merian Ensemble comprises Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians (from left) Jessica Oudin (viola), Marci Gurnow (clarinet), Christina Smith (flute), Elisabeth Remy Johnson (harp), and Emily Brebach (English horn/oboe).
“Several years ago, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson [founded] the Merian Ensemble, a chamber ensemble devoted to performing music from women composers and to commissioning new works from today’s women composers,” writes Mark Thomas Ketterson in Friday’s (7/30) ARTS ATL (Atlanta). “Her amazing new recording Quest … released this summer on Albany Records … takes its title from the disc-opening piece by composer Niloufar Nourbaksh … a stunner. Historical women composers ranging from the relatively well-known to the decidedly obscure are joined by a handful of works from the present day. Much of this music was originally composed for piano. The transcriptions are all Remy Johnson’s…. The Merian Ensemble’s … ‘first concert was more of a historical retrospective, going from Clara Schumann,’ Remy Johnson says…. In May, the ensemble performed and livestreamed American Music for Today and Tomorrow … [in] Atlanta, a program that focused on first-generation and immigrant American women. The ensemble commissioned The Book of Spells by Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad, which was given an ASO premiere in March. Plans call for a new commission each year…. ‘There is probably another whole album I could make today of women I have not discovered yet,’ Remy Johnson says.”
