Celebrating the launch of Toccata Classics London’s new CD, recorded at St. Matthew’s Cathedral!

WOMEN’S VOICES III
SONGS AND DUETS FOR VOICE AND PIANO
MUSIC OF AMY BEACH, LOUISE BERTIN, MADELEINE DRING,
JOHN DUKE, RICKY IAN GORDON, MARY HOWE
AND LIZA LEHMANN

with
Courtney Maina, soprano
Christopher A. Leach, tenor
Mary Dibbern, piano
Sunday, October 23 at 3:00 pm
Collora Piano Recital Hall
1451 Wycliff Avenue, Dallas 

This exciting new CD project, Mary Howe: Songs and Duets, organized by Cathedral Arts and supported by a deeply appreciated grant from the Puccini Society of Dallas, has produced a recording of selected concert songs for voice and piano by the celebrated American composer and champion of the arts, Mary Howe. In addition to 18 published solo songs for high voice (soprano or tenor), the recording includes three duets by Howe, two previously unpublished, using manuscripts held in the Mary Howe Papers of the New York Public Library. The project was produced by Martin Anderson at London’s Toccata Classics, which produces first recordings under the motto: “Forgotten Music by Great Composers, Great Music by Forgotten Composers.”

Mary Howe (1882-1964)

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Mary Howe was an American composer, pianist, and perhaps the most well-known woman involved with the burgeoning musical cultural revolution in Washington D.C. during the first half of the 20th century. At the age of 18, she entered the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore to study music; she continued her studies in Dresden, and later in Paris. After marrying and having three children, Howe returned to Peabody and graduated with a diploma in composition. Her works include numerous vocal and instrumental chamber works, solo piano music, and over twenty orchestral pieces, many of which were written during summers at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. She played solo and duo-piano recitals privately and professionally and toured over a period of many years as part of a piano duo. She and her husband were among the co-founders of the National Symphony Orchestra, where she served as the symphony’s first director. Howe helped found the Chamber Music Society of Washington, later known as the Friends of Music of the Library of Congress, and the Society of American Women Composers. She was the first woman on the faculty of New York University’s Department of Music. Late in her career, Howe served on the board of the National Cultural Center, later renamed the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Event flyer here.

Free admission and parking.