News from Britt Hill – March 2024

MARCH IS WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH! This year, the Britt Festival Orchestra is proud to present several extraordinary women on our stage. I’m grateful to live in a time and place when orchestras are finally taking note of the many women who have performed and created extraordinary works for orchestra. Virginia Woolf is credited with saying, “Anonymous was a woman,” referencing the many works of music, art, and literature that are credited as “anonymous.” Being a woman creator, businessperson, or leader means that we are held up by the many legacies of these anonymous creators as we forge a path of our own.

Half of our Britt Festival Orchestra season will be led by conductor Alexandra Arrieche, a former student and mentee of Marin Alsop (the last woman to lead the Britt Festival Orchestra). Alex’s career has spanned the globe; she is from Brazil, leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the London Proms, and holds conductor positions in Belgium, Washington, and Nevada.

Under Alex’s baton, we’ll experience the music of the fabulous Gabriela Lena Frank. Gabriela lives just south of us in Boonville, California. Her compositions often invoke her Peruvian/Chinese/Lithuanian/Jewish/American heritage, and she is one of the most important and exciting voices in composition today. A few years ago, she founded the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, which she created with funds from winning the very prestigious Heinz Award. The Academy helps living composers with collaboration, advocacy, finding their own voice, and more. It’s an extraordinary undertaking!

We’re also featuring two women as soloists with the orchestra: Gabriela Montero on piano, and Geneva Lewis on violin. Gabriela Montero is a celebrated pianist and composer from Venezuela, and she’ll be performing the Grieg Piano Concerto, which is full of melodies that many of us have heard before. It’s a monumental work that I personally find fills my head with scenes and images. Geneva Lewis is a violinist from New Zealand and has won several important international prizes. She’ll be performing the very wonderful Beethoven Violin Concerto, one of the most beautiful works for violin and orchestra.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention folk music legend Judy Collins, who will perform Wildflowers in its entirety with the Britt Festival Orchestra as part of our annual fundraiser. I’m pinching myself that we get to present this incredible collaboration on stage—it’s going to be so special.

I think Anonymous would be proud, don’t you?

All best, Abby