the Quaker Women's A cappella Chorus (QVVACs).

HEIDI THURMOND holds an undergraduate degree in FlutePerformance from Virginia Commonwealth University and agraduate degree in Music Therapy from the University of Kansas.As a professional flutist, she consistently works for the VirginiaRepertory Theater, Fort Lee Playhouse, Henrico Theater Company,and the Characterworks theatre program. Heidi is a founding memberof Richmond's Altissimo Flute Choir and can be heard with theRichmond Pops Band, Commonwealth Winds, and the RichmondPhilharmonic Orchestra. She teaches private flute lessons and is afaculty member at the Veritas School teaching K-6th grade students.Heidi continues to successfully compete in flute competitionsand pursue training as an educator by recently completing hercertification in the Orff-Schulwerk method. Contact her at

www.richmondflutist.com/.

MICHELLE MATTS earned a Bachelor of Music Education degreefrom Virginia Commonwealth University and a MM in FlutePerformance from the University of Arkansas. She was a memberof the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra from 1995-1997 and afeatured soloist with the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in1996, performing Charles Griffes' "Poem for Flute and Orchestra".Michelle was previously a teacher at Brookland Middle School whereshe directed both their woodwind ensemble and their beginning,intermediate, and advanced bands. Currently she is the principalflutist of the Richmond Symphonic Wind Ensemble. She is a privateflute and piano instructor and specializes in playing the flute,piccolo, alto flute, Irish flute, penny whistle, and fife. Michelle may becontacted via http://www.mfifer.com.

Department of Music I School of the Arts |Virginia Commonwealth University922 Park Avenue, Room 132 | PO Box 842004 | Richmond, VA 23284-2004

(804) 828-1166 | music@vcu.edu I arts.vcu.edu/music

vcuarts

MUSIC

FACULTY RECITAL

WOMEN IN MUSIC:LETTING A LONG STORY BE LONG

A RECITAL DEDICATED TO

WOMEN'S MUSICIANSHIP

DEBORAH SAIDEL,

FLUTE AND ALTO FLUTE

Sunday, August 30, 2015 | 4 p.m.Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall

W. E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts922 Park Avenue | Richmond, Virginia

arts.vcu.edu/music

vcuVIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

metro region and serves as Strings Coach and Orchestra Assistant atthe Appomattox Regional Governor's School in Petersburg, VA. Naimahas been featured in the historic Bruton Parish Church concert seriesin Williamsburg, VA, and served as concertmaster for the premiereof Steven M. Allen's opera, Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow, at theJohn F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.In 2012, she toured Ireland with the ensemble Flutopia and in 2013,traveled to Italy on a choir tour with St. James's Church. In 2014, Burrsserved as concertmaster for Steven M. Allen's new opera, The Poet,in Washington, D.C. and just she made her conducting debut withCapitol Opera of Richmond in the world premiere of Sleepy Hollow, aBaroque pastiche.

JACQUELIN SPEARS, a native of Richmond, obtained her professionaltraining at the Peabody Conservatory where she studied with MihalyBirzlay and in Atlanta, Georgia, as a pupil of Eckard Richter. She wasa founding member of the Atlanta Chamber Players as well as theRichmond Chamber Players and toured with pop icons John Denver,The Carpenters, and Tom Jones. Jackie was principal cellist withthe Chattanooga Symphony and as a free-lancing artist performsregularly with the Richmond Symphony and Williamsburg Sinfonia.She contracts for several organizations, leads her own chamberensembles and may be contacted at www.lyricstringquartet.org.

EMILY AVESIAN holds graduate degrees from Arizona StateUniversity (Clarinet Performance) and Virginia CommonwealthUniversity (Public Administration). As an active performer specializingin classical, commercial, and theater settings her performanceaffiliations include: the Richmond Symphony, Virginia RepertoryTheater, Virginia Opera, Happy Lucky Combo, Herberger Theater,and Arizona Broadway Theater. She regularly collaborates withchamber ensembles, new music ensembles, churches and jazz groups.Emily has extensive professional experience in clarinet pedagogyand artistic administration. She previously served as Personnel andOperations Manager of the Richmond Symphony for six years and hastaught private lessons at various sites in Richmond.

BARBARA ADAMS grew up in Falls Church, Virginia and studiedbiology and ethnomusicology at George Mason University. She hasbeen a life-long environmental activist drawing inspiration from theworks of Wendell Berry and considers meeting him in person asone of the highlights of her life. Barbara was co-owner of MovementResources, one of the earliest movement and bodywork practices inRichmond. She sees the healing qualities of music and nature as thefoundation for her work as a therapeutic body worker and believes inthe positive, nurturing message of the Divine Feminine. Barbara hassung in several choirs in the metro area and currently is a member of

repertory. Today, her works and performances are heard regularly onClassical radio stations throughout the country: Recently, Colemantook on a new challenge of being the Artistic Director of her owncreation, The Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, a highly successfulsummer training series and institute in New York City that serves asan advocate for aspiring musicians and young composers. Currently,she serves on the New Music Advisory Committee of National FluteAssociation, the Classical Connections Committee of Associationof Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), serves as an Artistic Advisorfor the Hartt School at the University of Connecticut, and is on theboards of the COR Music Project, and Composer's Concordance. RubyStreet was written in 2012 and is a homage to the 'bon temps' of NewOrleans nightlife.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

DEBORAH SAIDEL is a dedicated freelance performer and educatorin the Central Virginia Area. She holds undergraduate degrees in bothReligious Studies and Music from Virginia Commonwealth Universityand a MM in Flute Performance from Georgia State University. Herdiverse interests and talents have produced an eclectic mix ofprofessional achievements. Deborah's earliest training was in musicaltheatre playing flute, piccolo, tenor and alto saxophone and clarinet.She leads her own classical and jazz ensembles and maintains awoodwind teaching studio. Deborah is currently a second yeardoctoral student in the Media, Art and Text interdisciplinary programhere at V.C.U. "Women in Music" and "Sacred Sound Music in Religion"are courses that she has developed and teaches. Her dissertationfocuses on women in music. She may be contacted at dsaidel@vcu.edu and has an e-portfolio at http://rampages.us/dsaidel/.

KATHY PRITCHARD, a native of Colorado, has been part of theRichmond community since 1989. She holds a Master of Arts degreein Piano Performance and Pedagogy and has taught piano andtheory for more than four decades. Her skills as an accompanistand chamber musician have been used in numerous local andnational level recitals, master classes, and competitions. Recentlyshe participated in a piano festival in Indiana as well as at theMasterworks Festival in Washington, DC performing at the KennedyCenter. Here in Richmond she particularly enjoys accompanying andassisting young performers. She is an adjudicator for the NationalGuild of Piano Teachers and for various competitions here inRichmond and at the Masterworks Festival.

NAIMA BURRS obtained her BA in Music from VirginiaCommonwealth University in 2013. She teaches violin across the

vcuartsMUSIC

WOMEN IN MUSIC:

LETTING A LONG STORY BE LONG

Sunday, August 30, 2015 | 4 p.m.Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall

Suite for Trio, Opus 59 Melanie Bonis (1858-1937)

Serenade

Pastorale

Scherzo

Kathy Pritchard, piano

Naima Burrs, violin

When the Moon of Wildflowers is Full Judith Shatin Allen (b. 1949)Jacquelin Spears, cello

Full Circle Gwyneth Walker (b.1947)

1. Setting Forth

2. The Grace of the World

3. Let Tomorrow Come

Kathy Pritchard, pianoEmily Avesian, clarinet

Barbara Adams, poem reading

Chroma Cherise Leiter (b. 1972)

I. Spanish Red

II. Aspen Green/Aspen GoldIII. Blue Mountain Sky Stream

Jacquelin Spears, cello

Ruby Street "Nola" for C Flute Trio Valerie Coleman (ca. 1972)Heidi Thurmond, flute

Michelle Matts, flute

Please silence all electronic devices.

PROGRAM NOTES

SUITE FOR TRIO: Melanie Bonis (1858-1937) was born in Paris. Asa child, despite the discouragement of her parents in her interestin music, she taught herself to play piano. Cesar Frank, who wasso impressed with her abilities, made arrangements for her to beadmitted to the (all-male) Paris Conservatory in 1876. She wonprizes in harmony and accompaniment and showed great promise incomposition, but a romance with a fellow student (Amedee Hettich)caused her parents to withdraw her in 1881. In 1883, a marriage wasarranged by her family to a business man, a father of five boys, and 25years her senior who did not like music. They had three more childrenand for 10 years she led a bourgeois life. She met up with Hettichyears later and they had a professional relationship as he championedher musical career. She resisted Hettich for a long time but finallysuccumbed to her feelings resulting in the birth of their daughterwho Bonis would never be able to recognize legally. She tried tosublimate these ordeals by prayers and musical creation. Bonis was aprolific and inspired composer. She composed three hundred worksand helped bridge the gap between the Romantic and Impressionistmovements of French music. Suite for Trio was first published in1903 and dedicated to L.C. Malherbe. In the years prior to WWI hercompositions were regularly published and performed by virtuososof the day. After the war Bonis slipped into obscurity and was largelybedridden from arthritis and depression, although she continued tocompose into the 1920s.

WHEN THE MOON OF WILDFLOWERS IS FULL: Judith Shatin Allen(b. 1947) was educated at Douglass College, The Juilliard School (MM)and Princeton University (MFA, PhD). She is William R. Kenan, Jr.Professor and Founding Director of the Virginia Center for ComputerMusic at the University of Virginia. She has been honored with fourNational Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, as well as awards fromthe American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the New JerseyState Arts Council and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Longan advocate for her fellow composers, Judith Shatin has served onthe boards of the American Composers Alliance, the League/ISCM,and the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) and asPresident of American Women Composers Inc., and currently sits onthe National Council of the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In demandas a master teacher, she has been featured in the BMI composerresidency at Vanderbilt University, the Austin Peay New DirectionsSeries, as senior composer at the Wellesley Composers Conferenceand as guest faculty at California Summer Music, among many others."When the Moon of Wildflowers is Full" was composed in 1973 forthe wedding of dear friends that took place in a beautiful meadowin high summer in Aspen, CO, where I was a composition student at

the Aspen Music Festival. The music has a light, Renaissance dancelike quality, interpreted in a contemporary vein. My experiences atthe Aspen Music Festival opened the door to a life in music, and toongoing joy in its creation."

FULL CIRCLE: Gwyneth Walker (b.1947) is a graduate of BrownUniversity and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. andD.M.A. Degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty memberof the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academicemployment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-timecomposer. She now lives on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont.Walker's catalog includes over 120 commissioned works for orchestra,band, chorus and chamber ensembles. Gwyneth Walker is a proudresident of Vermont. She is the recipient of the Year 2000 "LifetimeAchievement Award" from the Vermont Arts Council. Full Circle,published in 2007, was commissioned by the Palisades Virtuosiand premiered at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, New Jerseyin 2008. Today, each movement is preceded by a poem reading(excerpts) by Barbara Adams. The first movement by Whitman's Songof the Open Road, the second by Wendell Berry's The Peace of WildThings, and the final movement by his Not by Your Will.

CHROMA: Cherise Leiter (b.1972 ) received a Bachelor of Musicdegree in Music Theory and a Master of Music degree in Compositionfrom the University of Florida where she studied with Dr. Budd Udell.She relocated to Colorado and is currently Associate Professor atMetropolitan State College of Denver where she teaches music theoryand composition. An active composer whose output includes worksfor choir, piano, voice, carillon, orchestra and assorted chamberensembles; her compositions have been performed throughoutthe United States, Scotland, France, Italy, and Japan. Chroma waspublished in 2012 and commissioned by Dr. Michelle Stanley. Eachmovement represents one of the beautiful colors found in theColorado landscape

RUBY STREET "NOLA": Valerie Coleman (ca. 1972) is a native ofLouisville, Kentucky. She earned a double B.A. in Theory/Compositionand Flute Performance from Boston University and has a graduatedegree in Flute Performance from Mannes College of Music. Shecreated a chamber music ensemble and chose the name ImaniWinds, with Imani being the Swahili word for faith, and soughtAfrican American woodwind players who might approach classicalmusic from a similar cultural background. Coleman made her debutas a flutist/composer at Carnegie Hall in 2004 and prior to that wasthe understudy for flutist Eugenia Zukerman at the Lincoln Center.Coleman's style mixes modern orchestration with genres as diverse asjazz and Afro-Cuban. She has added a number of works to the flute