Chamber music, with a focus on the female perspective, joyously filled Hahn Hall at last week’s Music Academy of the West's x2 Series performance. Curated by teaching artist Cynthia Phelps, Femme Focus explored works written, inspired, and performed by women.
First up in the program was Septuor Fantaisie ou Concerto, Op. 72 by Mel Bonis (1858-1937), whose history Phelps shared a bit about. French late-romantic composer Mélanie Hélène "Mel" Bonis’s life was “quite a soap opera.” Her early musical ambitions were stymied after an arranged marriage to a widower 25 years her senior with five children. She then went on to give birth to three children of her own. However, in time she was able to return to her love of music and devoted all of her energies to composition and eventually composed more than 300 compositions.
“Sacred Women” by Jeff Scott (b. 1967) was up next, with women as the subject and intricate horn movements that included an unusual moment when the second horn left and played offstage in a call and response type of interaction with the first horn (played by Jesse Silverberg and Drew Patterson respectively).