CROWD-SOURCING HOLIDAY ORCHESTRAL WORKS BY WOMEN COMPOSERS

please help me grow this very small list

Those of us who studied orchestral instruments like maniacs in our youth practiced excerpts by Beethoven, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and Shostakovich. It’s how we got our jobs in orchestras in the end. The way we play that stuff really shows who we are, right?

We never really practiced music for holiday shows, which are often tossed off by orchestral musicians who spend their time on more “serious” music. However, these holiday programs are public celebrations where we engage our audience in a different way. Different doesn’t mean less important. What is a better vehicle for celebration than music? Orchestral holiday celebrations often feature 12-15 works and are quite different than a typical “serious” orchestral concert with an overture, concerto, intermission, and symphony. They are great entrance points for children and the general public audience we are dying to get in our doors for our regular concerts.

However, despite so many more works on these programs than our regular ones, we often marginalize women composers even more in these celebratory settings. I realized recently that I have played virtually no works by women composers in these settings. A Halloween show with 15 works, none of which were composed by a woman? Just another vehicle to center the voices of men and pretend women are not important. So, since I don’t know a lot of repertoire by women composers suitable for these orchestral celebrations, I am asking for your help to compile lists which hopefully can be helpful. It is my hope that having an easy-to-access list would help orchestra administrators who don’t actively wish to suppress women’s voices program those voices. It would be so great to show children and newcomers in their holiday sweaters that our music isn’t just by white dudes.

If you leave a comment, which I strongly encourage you to do, please indicate to me which holiday the piece you are adding is suitable for and link to any publishers or recordings you can. I’d also like to include approximate timings. And if you’re a composer who has music but doesn’t get it programmed, recorded, or published because #woman, that’s okay—just give me as many details as you can. I will update this list with your information and delete your comments as I do that to keep things streamlined.

ETA: I initially forgot to add Lunar New Year here, but this is something I’ve really enjoyed of late and I know orchestras are having great community success at these concerts. So I looked through my old programs for this and found virtually no music by women composers, despite my initial thoughts that this was a diverse and exciting event. I hope you have some suggestions for my list here.

And hey, orchestras: if you don’t think there are suitable “quality” pieces which suit your needs to choose from in my list-to-be, please commission them and share the details with me:

Halloween/Dia de los Muertos

Lauren Bernofsky: Three Portraits of a Witch

Wendy Carlos: The Shining Sountrack Main Title 3:30

Anna Clyne: This Midnight Hour 14:00

Gabriela Lena Frank: Elegía Andina 11:00

Gabriela Lena Frank: Requiem for a Magical America: El Dia de lof Muertos 25:00

Nancy Galbraith: Danza de los Duendes 10:00

Hildur Guðnadóttir: score to Joker, 17 tracks 36:30

August Holmès: Andromeda (1883) 15:00 (public domain!)

Katie LaBrie: Skeleton Waltz 2:30

Katie LaBrie: Midnight Howl 3:00

Katie LaBrie: Goblins and Ghouls 2:45

Pauline Viardot: Le dernier sorcerer 39 tracks, 66:00

Christmas/Winter/Hannukah/Kwanza/New Year

Amy Beach: Bal Masqué 5:00

Lauren Bernofsky: We Wish You a Klezmer Christmas * 3:30 *(string orchestra plus band versions are intended to be combinable into full orchestra version)

Margaret Bonds: Ballad of the Brown King 14 tracks

Valerie Coleman: Umoja 10:00

Katherine Kenicott Davis: Carol of the Drum/Little Drummer Boy 3:00

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst: Carol of the Brass 3:30

Christine Donkin: Fantasia on Coventry Carol 4:44

Ruth Gipps: Death on a Pale Horse, Op. 25 8:00

Vítězslava Kaprálová: Prélude de Noël (Christmas Prelude) 2:00

Anna Morley: Snowride 3:00

Polina Nazaykinskaya: Winter Bells 14:30

Yukiko Nishimura: The First Noel 4:20

Lara Poe: Cold Evenings 10:00

Rosephanye Powell: Christus Natus Est (orchestra + choir) 5:20

Florence Price arr. Robert Jones: Adoration (public domain!) 3:00

Leanna Primiani: Gaudete 6:30

Elizabeth Raum: Variations on Jeanette, Isabella 4:00

Sonya Leonore Stahl: Symphonukkah 7:22

Gwyneth Walker: Rejoice (orchestra + choir) 12:30

Lunar New Year

Shuying Li: Phoenix Ascends 6:00

Yukiko Nishimura: Luna 7:00

Valentine’s Day

Clara Kathleen Rogers arr. Colin Holter: Romanza 7:30

Earth Day

Stacy Garrop: Terra Nostra 66:00

Juneteenth

Lauren Bernofsky: Heart of Fire 5:20

Margaret Bonds: Montgomery Variations

Jessie Montgomery: Five Freedom Songs 20:00

Florence Price: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight 30:00

Autumn Maria Reed: Cries from Our Soil 3:30

Mary Watkins: Is This America? (opera)

July 4

Margaret Bonds: Montgomery Variations

Carolyn Bremer: Early Light 5:00

Jessie Montgomery: Banner, 8:00

Jessie Montgomery: Five Freedom Songs 20:00

Soon Hee Newbold: American Landscape 2:30

Florence Price: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight 30:00

Joan Tower: Made in America 13:15

Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (1986) 3:00

Veteran’s/Remembrance Day

Maya Badian: Holocaust - In Memoriam Symphony 16:00

Lili Boulanger: Pour les funérailles d’un soldat 8:40