PROTESTRA's Upcoming Concert
PROTESTRA will present a concert on Saturday, June 27 at 2 PM at St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church (263 W. 86th St.). Titled “Founding Mothers,” the program will feature works by contemporary and historic American women composers in an effort to equalize the frequent gender imbalance of traditional July 4th concert programming. Tickets are $30 general admission, $10 for students, and PROTESTRA will donate proceeds to two NYC-based charities whose work supports and uplifts women and girls: Hour Children and Girls for Gender Equity.
The concert will be led by PROTESTRA Music Director and Founder, Michelle Rofrano, and newly-appointed PROTESTRA Associate Conductor, Kamna Gupta. The program will feature two world premieres of works by two women composers living and working in NYC. Both pieces were commissioned by the American Composers Forum as part of their multi-year Recomposing America initiative. Timed with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Recomposing America aims to refresh and reimagine the “who,” “what,” and “why” of the United States and the stories therein.
These two new orchestral works highlight concepts of girlhood and womanhood as they relate to the history and future of America. Matriarch, by PROTESTRA Associate Conductor Danielle Jagelski, was written in honor of the knowledge systems created and sustained by the enduring wisdom of indigenous female leadership. The other premiere, JL Marlor’s YELLFIRE, features voice and electric guitar alongside the orchestra and explores female rage becoming a force of transformation.
The whole concert is a nod to women from around the world who have shaped American history and culture. It will include Allegro, one of the rare existing orchestral works by French composer Nadia Boulanger, who as composition professor trained some of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century. PROTESTRA will also pay tribute to “women who are adventurous and take risks” with composer Joan Tower’s Sixth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.
The PROTESTRA Wind Quintet will perform Pastorale, a poignant meditation on nature by the earliest prominent American woman composer, Amy Beach. A staple of contemporary woodwind repertoire follows: Umoja (“Unity”) by renowned contemporary flutist and composer Valerie Coleman, inspired by the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa. The program closes with Florence Price’s Symphony No. 4, the final symphony composed by the first African-American woman to have her work premiered by a top American orchestra.