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Jennifer Higdon and her cat Beau,
photograph by Candice DiCarlo (See her work click here)
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When anyone is creating anything, it has no choice but to be in that stream. The art I create and the art my colleagues create is part of it. But the question is: how long will it last in the stream? I think of it really as an enormous river, with its shores very distant from each other, and only time will tell what's going to last in the end. It seems to me that all music of our time is connected, but I never think about where I am in the river or how I would be placed by others inside of it.” ~ Jennifer Higdon.
Most Classical “top 50 music lists” are made up of male composers who are of European descent. Dead, they still have must have great agents working for them. These guys continue to get the majority of air time. In the US 2016-2017 concert season, male composers of European descent made up ~ 98% of the work played in symphony halls. It is a continued struggle for women and people of color to get their works heard.
T and I will be heading to Cleveland in April 2019. Jennifer Higdon’s work Blue Cathedral will be performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. I’ve heard her piece played on the radio several time, but not live. I want to do my part for supporting women artists by showing up.
Blue Cathedral is a work written in memory of Higdon’s brother who died of cancer. In it you hear a dialogue between flute and clarinet. The instruments are the ones she and her brother played. Listening to the two instruments go back and forth, reminds me of the dialogues I’ve had with siblings both real and imagined. When I listen to this piece, I am reminded of Copland's Appalachian Spring and Bernstein's “Make Our Gardens’ Grow” Candide -- uplifting melodies that are fresh and full of hope. In the space of 10 minutes, Higdon takes us to a place of refuge, a sacred thin place to commune with our ancestors and the divine.
O'Bannon, Ricky. (31, Oct. 2016). Data Behind the 2016-2017 Orchestra Season. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. retrieved 31, July, 2018. http://www.bsomusic.org/stories/the-data-behind-the-2016-2017-orchestra-season/
