Marvento Duo celebrates music by women composers both past and present, and considers their legacies through the music of composers they influenced. The program opens with Shulamit Ran’s dramatic East Wind. In Jhula Jhule, Reena Esmail honors her grandparents through the Indian folk songs they taught her, while Kaija Saariaho’s Tocar explores what happens when the sounds of two instruments touch. These three contemporary composers have already influenced our generation of listeners, performers, and composers, and we hope that the late 20th century and early 21st century will be remembered as the time when the works of women composers are equally represented in the classical music canon.
Nineteenth century pianist and composer Clara Schumann influenced many musicians throughout her life, including her husband Robert Schumann and their close friend Johannes Brahms. To honor Clara Schumann’s legacy, Marvento shares her Three Romances and Johannes Brahms’ Op. 76 Capriccio which he dedicated to her. The program ends with a trio of early 20th century composers: Lili Boulanger, the first female winner of the Prix de Rome prize in composition (1913), her older sister and brilliant composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, and American composer Aaron Copland, who planned on studying only one year with Nadia Boulanger but stayed for three.