Women of American Chamber Music

Abstract

On February 20, 2019, Laena Grace Batchelder, with her colleagues, performed a recital of three chamber pieces by American women composers. The first was Amy Beach’s Violin Sonata played with Mr. Edward Newman. The other two pieces were string quartets performed by the Uproar String Quartet, which included Batchelder’s fellow TCU students: Manuel Ordóñez, Ashley Santore, and Manuel Papale. They played Missy Mazzoli’s Death Valley Junction and Jennifer Higdon’s An Exaltation of Larks.
 In addition to the performance, Batchelder researched the current status of women in classical music, the history of American female composers, and the three composers she programmed and their pieces. From this research, she wrote detailed program notes for the audience to read.