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Annual Women in Music Festival returns to Nazareth University

Rochester, NY (02/22/2024) — To celebrate the artistry of women composers, the Nazareth University School of Music is hosting the third annual Women in Music Festival, March 7-10, at Nazareth and Buffalo State University, featuring Composer-in Residence Lori Laitman, the Greater Rochester Women's Philharmonic under the direction of Nancy Strelau, and faculty and student performers from area colleges. Festival events and activities include concerts, master classes, panel discussions, and a film screening at the Little Theatre, all of which will serve as a catalyst for purposeful dialogue, future collaborations, and engaging performances for the Rochester and Buffalo communities.

Highlights of the 2024 Festival include:

Concert with Nazareth Faculty and Students and Guest Performers at 6:00 p.m. on March 9 in the Wilmot Recital Hall at Nazareth. Featuring works by Laitman and other women composers, and performances by students and faculty from SUNY Buffalo State, Eastman School of Music, Nazareth University, SUNY Onondaga Community College, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Festival Concert In the Company of Women at 3 p.m. on March 10 in Nazareth's Beston Hall, featuring Nazareth School of Music faculty and the Greater Rochester Women's Philharmonic performing world premieres by Laitman and her daughter, composer Diana Rosenblum, featuring mezzo-soprano Katie Hannigan. WXXI Classical 91.5 FM's Mona Seghatoleslami is the concert MC. There will be a pre-concert talk at 2:15 p.m. moderated by Seghatoleslami with Strelau, Laitman and Rosenblum

Visit go.naz.edu/Women-in-music for the full Festival schedule. All but two of the events are free, and all are open to the public.

"We are delighted to welcome Lori Laitman to this year's Festival." remarked WMF Director and founder Bonnie Choi. "To work with her and premiere a new work of hers is a great honor."

Described by "Fanfare Magazine" as, "one of the most talented and intriguing of living composers," Lori Laitman has composed operas, choral works, and hundreds of songs setting texts by classical and contemporary poets, including those who perished in the Holocaust. Her music is widely performed throughout the world and has generated substantial critical acclaim. "The Journal of Singing" wrote, "One cannot help but be astounded by the endless reserves of Laitman's musical imagination as well as her unerring instincts for setting texts with sensitivity and grace."

Laitman's music is praised for its uniqueness, craft and beauty: "unmistakablemasterful" ("Opera News"); "artistry of the highest order" ("Textura.org"); "gripping and thought-provoking" ("American Record Guide"). She's received commissions from the BBC, The Royal Philharmonic Society, Opera America, Opera Colorado, Seattle Opera, Grant Park Music Festival, Music of Remembrance and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Her discography is extensive, with releases on Acis, Albany, Naxos and other labels and her latest, "The Ocean of Eternity," was named by Textura.org as #4 of the top 20 classical vocal releases of 2022. Her works have been featured on Thomas Hampson's "Song of America" radio, Internet series and website, and in "The Grove Dictionary of American Music." She is a frequent guest composer at universities across the country.

The 2024 Women in Music Festival is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of The Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts.

The events at Nazareth University are co-sponsored by the School of Music, the Office for Diversity & Inclusive Excellence Education, Weider Community Engagement Office, the Center for Spirituality, Naz Composition Club, and the Intersectional Feminist Alliance.

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