She Scores: Sonntag, Onofrei, Griebling-Haigh, Lee

Presented by the Local 4 Music Fund and sponsored by the Music Performance Trust Fund, Ohio Arts Council, Bascom Little Fund, Sweeney Group, and by individual donations to the Local 4 Music Fund

Featuring works by: Cara Haxo, Dawn Sonntag, Inna Onofrei, HyeKyung Lee, Margi Griebling-Haigh

About ‘She Scores’
In summer 2021 the Local 4 Music Fund will launch an annual concert series highlighting female (with a focus on regional) living composers. This concert series will be presented by a diverse group of performers in three concerts June 25th-27th 2021, and is in collaboration with the Cleveland Composers Guild and supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Music Performance Trust Fund, the Bascom Little Fund, and the Sweeney Group.

According to a 2015 survey done by the Baltimore Symphony of the 22 largest American orchestras, women composers accounted for only 1.8 percent of the total pieces performed in the 2014-2015 concert season.  Perhaps more worrying, however, is that women composers only accounted for 14.3 percent of performances of works by those living composers who are writing the pieces that may one day enter the regular repertoire.

It is the Music Fund’s hope that this concert series serves not only as an occasion for recognition and celebration, but also as an opportunity to remind ourselves of the urgent need to redouble our efforts towards closing the chasm of opportunity and representation that separates women from men. This is a problem that must be viewed within a wider issue of diversification in concert music. Our performance series and concert halls are training grounds for empathy. The more opportunities for music written by female composers to be performed and allowed to speak to an audience, the harder it is for people to objectify or dehumanize the creators of the works that speak to their hearts. Changes need to be made, and we feel that the change should begin with us.

Original art commissioned for ‘She Scores’ 2021 by Justin Carter-Van Pelt IG iconographic_nyc