Malmgren Concert Series—Celebrating Women Composers

March 3
Celebrating Women Composers

The Syracuse University Symphony Orchestra celebrates Women’s History Month with a trio of compositions by outstanding women composers.

Program:

Callirhoë Suite, Op. 37     Cécile Chaminade (1857 – 1944)

Concerto for Two Guitars and Orchestra  Germaine Tailleferre (1892 – 1983)

Kenneth Meyer and Liamna Pestana, soloists

North American Premiere

Symphony No.6: The Blue Marble (2022) Julie Giroux (b. 1961)

The program opens with the orchestral suite version of French pianist-composer Cécile Chaminade’s “ballet symphonique,” Callirhoë. The ballet received its premiere in 1888 at the Grand-Théâtre in Marseille and was an immediate success. The ballet is based on a libretto by the Provençal poet Elzéard Rougier that describes the efforts of Alcmeon trying to win the heart of his captive princess Callirhoë who, dreaming only of being allowed to return to her native land, persistently remains aloof. The goddess Venus steps in and, after many vicissitudes, including the heroine being turned into a marble statue, the tale ends happily. After the success of the ballet, Chaminade prepared a solo piano version and the orchestral suite version of this program. The third movement of the orchestral suite – Scherzettino – was especially popular with nineteenth-century French audiences.

Marcelle Germaine Tailleferre began her musical studies with her mother before pursuing composition at the Paris Conservatoire. A significant member of the ground-breaking composer collective known as Les Six, Tailleferre’s most fruitful period was in the 1920s, when she composed her First Piano Concerto, the Harp Concertino, and several ballets. Tailleferre wrote her Concerto for Two Guitars and Orchestra for the French Radio in 1960, however, it was never performed and the score was thought to be lost until it resurfaced in 2003. This performance will be the North American Premiere of this important work.

The program concludes with Julie Giroux’s contemporary symphony and film, The Blue Marble, composed in 2022. This work is inspired by the iconic image of Earth taken by the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Drawing on sounds and imagery from nature, the composer hopes that “this symphony reminds people just how frail and beautiful Earth is. I hope The Blue Marble

fills hearts and minds with a renewed love for our planet, our one and only home. Earth is the one thing we all have in common. It does not belong to us. We belong to it. It is our only home and we should always treat it as such with every generation leaving it healthier and happier than the way they found it.”

For more information, please check Hendricks Chapel’s Malmgren Concert web page.