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Athena Festival
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The Athena Festival is a biennial event, sponsored by the Department of Music, devoted to the study and performance of music composed by women. The Athena Festival is a multi-faceted event reaching public school music students, MSU students and faculty, regional audiences and scholars/performers front across the country. The Athena Festival VIII will be held February 26-March 1, 2013 and include three days of lecture/recital sessions, and concerts featuring MSU Concert Choir, MSU Jazz Orchestra and Department of Music Faculty Chamber Music ensembles. The theme of the 2013 Athena Festival is "Breaking Barriers - Finding Her Own Voice."
2013 Athena Festival Featured Composer
Dr. Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) is a graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. For nearly 30 years, she lived on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont. She has now returned to her childhood hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut.
Gwyneth Walker has been a proud resident of Vermont. She is the recipient of the Year 2000 "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Vermont Arts Council as well as the 2008 "Athenaeum Award for Achievement in the Arts and Humanities" from the St. Johnsbury (VT) Athenaeum.
Walker's catalog includes over 200 commissioned works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, and solo voice. The music of Gwyneth Walker is published by E.C. Schirmer(choral/vocal music) and Lauren Keiser Music Publishing (orchestral/instrumental music).
In recent years, Gwyneth Walker traveled across the United States working with a variety of musicians as they recorded her works. As a result of these collaborations, several new CDs have been released: A Vision of Hills (piano trios and string works, performed by Trio Tulsa), An Hour to Dance (music for SATB chorus recorded by the choirs at Whitman College), Now Let Us Sing! (with Bella Voce Women’s Chorus, Burlington, Vermont), The Sun Is Love (solo voice and piano works performed by Chicago artists Michelle Areyzaga and Jamie Shaak), and Scattering Dark and Bright (song cycles recorded by the Walker-Eklof Duo).
In addition to the composing of new works, there has also been a special project of creating orchestral accompaniments for many of the choral and vocal works in the Walker catalog. Thus, the Songs for Women’s Voices, Three Days By the Sea, I Thank You God, and the song cycle, No Ordinary Woman!, have all been orchestrated. Another new work, A Testament to Peace, combines three peace-oriented choral works (Tell the Earth to Shake, The Tree of Peace, and There is a Way to Glory) into a set with chamber orchestra. Coming soon will be The Promised Land – songs for Soprano and Orchestra based on familiar American songs.
Another special project has been the creation of works for orchestra with narrator. Muse of Amherst (based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson) has been performed by several New England orchestras. And, By Walden Pond (with readings of H. D. Thoreau) was premiered in 2009 by the Carson City (NV) Symphony.
Recent works include two new SATB choral/orchestral sets: The Morning Train (songs about trains) and Alpha and Omega (Christmas songs), as well as Blessings from the Children (for youth chorus and orchestra) and The Circus of Creation - a staged presentation with music based on the poetry of Robert Lax. Circus was premiered at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, FL, with the Sarasota Brass Quintet and Narrator/Ringmaster Cliff Roles.
| Athena Festival History |
| | Featured
Scholars and Composers |
| |
| | | 1999 | Dr. Karin Pendle, editor Women
and Music: A History
|
| | | | Barbara Harbach-George,
organist, harpsichordist and founder of Vivace Press |
| |
| | | 2001 | Adrienne Fried Block,
author of Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian: The Life and Times of an
American Composer
|
| | | | Barbara Honn, soprano and
professor of voice, The University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory
of Music |
| |
| | | 2003 | Dr. Judith Tick, author of
Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music
|
| | | | Peggy Seeger, daughter of
Ruth Crawford Seeger and a folk singer/songwriter
|
| | | | Sara Carina Graf, composer
of premiered song cycle "Prayers from the Long History of Happiness" |
| |
| | | 2005 | Dr. Nancy B. Reich, author
of Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman
|
| | | | Lori Laitman,
award-winning composer of art songs |
| |
| | | 2007 | Helen Walker-Hill, author
of "From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and
their Music"
|
| |
| | | 2009 | Judith Lang Zaimont, composer and editor of the three volume book series The Musical Woman: An International Perspective.
|
| |
| |
| | Featured
"Meet the Composer" Program composers |
| |
| | | 1999 | Eugenie Rocherolle, (piano
and choral works) |
| |
| | | 2003 | Linda Spevecek |
| |
| | | 2005 | Mary Lynn Lightfoot |
| |
| | | 2007 | Patsy Ford Simms
|
| | | | Mary Watkins
|
| |
| | | 2009 | Elaine Schram
|
| |
| |
| | Award-Winning
Composers |
| |
| | | 2001 | Tina Davidson (PA) - Antiphon
for a Virgin
|
| | | | Kristi McGarity (TX) - Three
E.E. Cummings Poems
|
| | | | Dina Smorgonskaya (Israel)
- Three Songs of Poems by Frederico Garcia Lorca |
| |
| | | 2003 | Stacy Garrop (IL) - Sonnets
of Vanity, Loss and Rapture
|
| | | | Nancy Wertsch (NY) - Shakespeare
Suite |
| |
| | | 2005 | Dorothy Hindman (AL) - Psalm
121
|
| | | | Elyzabeth Meade (NY) - Mulberry
Birds
|
| | | | Deborah Kavasch (CA) - Trio
for B-flat Clarinet, Violin and Piano |
| |
| | | 2007 | Carol Barnett (MN) - Veni
Sancte Spiritus
|
| | | | Bonnie Miksch (OR) - There
Is No Rose
|
| | | | Hsiao-Lan Wang (TX) - Trio
in Two Movements for Viola, Vibraphone and Piano |
| |
| | | 2009 | Elizabeth Alexander - Blessed Be The Flower That Triumphs At Last and The Journey
|
| | | | Hye Kyung Lee - Gust of Embers
|