Share Your Stories

Please share your stories about projects that have originated or grown from the Women in Music Festival:  collaborations with composers, recordings, research projects, or other projects that would not have happened without the festival.

The Women in Music Festival will always hold a special place in my heart. I was lucky enough to premier a work by Barbara York at the festival, which was wonderful. However, the best part of the festival for me was being able to play that piece, entitled “Suite for Horn, Tuba, and Piano,” with Gretchen Snedeker. Little did any of us know that it would be the last time we would hear her play her horn at Eastman, but I consider myself to be the luckiest person to be on the stage with her for that performance.

Andy Smith, MM ’09
Director of Athletic Bands, UNC Greensboro

I have a long history with the Women in Music Festival. In 2007, I played “Light from the Cliffs” by composer Hilary Tann for the noontime concert at the Miller Center. In 2011, I was Assistant Director for the festival and the guest Composer-in-Residence was Hilary Tann. My ensemble group played Tann’s piano trio, “Nothing Forgotten” in the WMF tour and Nazareth College concert. After the performance at the Nazareth College, Hilary Tann came to me and said, “You should record this!”. In 2012, we played a concert dedicated to Tann’s solo and chamber works. In 2013, we recorded 8 selected pieces by Tann including 6 premiere recordings. In 2014, the CD “Musical Landscapes of Hilary Tann” (www.musicallandscapes12.com) is about to be released by Centaur Records. I am planning a CD launching party and concert this June.
This was my long and happy journey with the WMF!

Eunmi Ko, DMA ’12

Dear Sylvie,

Thank you for 10 wonderful years of service to music in Rochester. I have played music and met people that will always stay in my memory because of Women in Music.

Petar Kodzas ESM DMA 99

Upon applying for a position to teach here at the Eastman School of Music, my first contact was with Dr. Sylvie Beaudette who would be playing for me for the audition. Her talent, support, positive energy and kindness was so appreciated. I have been able to now participate in the WMF many times and her work and dedication towards this festival has been amazing. It has been a great success and many of my students -male and female- have benefited from the exploration of new literature and through the exposure to the work of many women composers. Dr. Beaudette and those that have performed have created a wonderful legacy that we can all celebrate.

Kathryn Cowdrick, Associate Professor of Voice
It is such a pleasure to try to capture tones of words to match music. Thank you Sylvie Beaudette for inviting poets to be part of this celebration! Below, a poem inspired by Souvenir d’une fée (Memory of a Fairy) by Mei-Fang Lin , who wrote her piece for violin of this title in memory of her Grandmother. The Chinese characters for “Sien nyu” do not reproduce here, but imagine their brushed presence after “solace strokes”.

Souvenir d’une fée

A flight of notes
then
memory balances

(ghost on tiptoes bounced by bow

silence spun on fleet-feet)—

We do not know
what echoes lie in fairy, fée

how solace strokes

Sien nyu : woman of divine beauty
and grandmother
twining, spinning
ink, note by note,
(her ghost on tiptoes)—

She, the ideal
the violin makes skip with joy

pauses, gathers all the ages
of herself:
girl, mother, the tenderness of old age—

Grandmother
as moonlight
strewn meadowsweet

and violin

breathing her memory.

— by Kitty Jospé

Sylvie always has a cheerful Bonjour and an infectious enthusiasm which encouraged me, in my first years at Eastman, to have the pleasure of performing 2 rarely heard Chansons by Lili Boulanger with her and subsequently encouraged my students to participate. This series is, and will continue to be missed, by its audiences and participants.

Jan Opalach
Associate Professor of Voice