Mother’s Day concert highlights female composer
The first female composer knighted by the British Empire crowns Chatter Sunday’s program just in time for Mother’s Day.
The musicians will perform Dame Ethel Mary Smythe’s Concerto for horn, violin and orchestra at the Las Puertas Event Center.
Horn player Nathan Ukens and violinist David Felberg will join Debra Ayers, who will perform the orchestral accompaniment on the piano.
One of the countless female composers whose works deserve more frequent performance, Smythe struggled against the prejudices of her time, not only within music but in society at large. In 1922, she was honored as a dame of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood.
Her late 19th to early 20th century British romantic style resembles an Elgar-meets-Vaughan Williams hybrid, Felberg said.
“But she has her own voice,” he said. “Female composers back then didn’t get much play.
It’s got some beautiful things going on.”
Smythe studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, where she met Dvorák, Grieg and Tchaikovsky. In 1903, the Metropolitan Opera staged her opera “Der Wald.” Her song “The March of the Woman” became the official anthem of the Women’s Social and Political Union, the militant leaders of the British women’s suffrage movement.
To open the concert, Felberg will play Dvorák’s familiar “Humoresque.”
“My daughter knows it, and she’s about to learn it in her violin studies,” he said. “It’s one of those pieces that just sticks with you. It’s a catchy little tune.”
The program will also include Philip Glass’ Sonata for violin and piano in an ongoing tribute to the composer’s 80th birthday.