Timeline: Vermont Public Classical

Sometimes you run across the name of a composer you’ve never heard of before and when you read about their life and their work, you start to wonder, why? Why have I never heard of this person? That was certainly my experience when I started researching the life and work of Brazilian composer Cacilda Borges Barbosa.

Originally Aired - Aug. 29, 2016 In the 19th century, composition was a man’s world. The stigma of being a female composer made it difficult for a woman’s work to be read or heard. One woman helped to break through this glass ceiling and pave the way for a generation of female composers, her name was Amy Beach.

Jaime Laredo is a world-renowned violinist and conductor. I had a chance to speak with him via Zoom recently, as we are celebrating his 80th birthday and over 70 years of public performance. Jaime’s also served as the music director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra since the year 2000. It was announced in 2019 that he would be stepping down from that position and I asked Jaime what his feelings were about this change.

Originally aired May 16, 2016

19th century Germany was not a hospitable environment for female composers. Nevertheless, Clara Weick-Schumann left an indelible mark with her compositions, her soulful musicianship, her inspired instruction and her influence on many major composers of her generation.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Camargo Guarnieri spent most of his career under the shadow of his name and of fellow Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos. Like Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri brought the music of Brazil to the concert stage through symphonies, operas, dance music and song. After all, with a name like Mozart what else could you be but a composer?

Besides being a composer/conductor, Carlos Chavez was also a journalist, historian and educator, guiding the course of Mexican orchestral music in the 20th century.

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian guitarist, cellist, composer and conductor. He’s not just one of the most celebrated South-American composers of all time, but also one of the most prolific. Villa-Lobos composed over 2000 works, and his music is the soundtrack for a period of great upheaval and change for Brazil in the 20th century.

The Renaissance was a time of re-birth as science and the arts changed the face of culture. However, some old ideas persisted in the midst of this change; especially beliefs about the roles and intellectual capacity of the genders. Even though the Renaissance saw many female heads of state it was still held as common knowledge that women were inferior to men, physically, mentally and artistically. As a result we have very few examples of female composers during this period of music history. There is an exception though, the work of Maddalena Casulana.

Maria Grever was the first Mexican, woman composer to earn international attention. You’ve probably heard her melodies and lyrics sung and performed by so many popular musicians from the United States and Latin America. We know her tunes, but very few of us know her name.

Originally aired on June 1, 2015

Hildegard of Bingen was a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, abbess, polymath and a literal visionary of the 12th Century.