Accomplishments of Fresno County women will be celebrated at special April event
October is National Doughnut Month, but you don’t stop eating them in November, right? March was Women’s History Month, so what’s wrong with extending the celebration into April? That’s what will happen at the Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall at Clovis North High School on Sunday, April 23 at 2:30 p.m. The Fresno Master Chorale and the League of Women Voters of Fresno will highlight their recognition of women’s achievements with a concert and an exhibition.
Conducted by Anna Hamre, the concert will feature women composers. While everyone has heard of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and even Robert Schumann, what about Robert’s wife Clara? In addition to being an outstanding composer, she was also a virtuoso pianist. And by the way, Brahms was in love with her even though she was married to Robert.
Fanny Mendelssohn, the sister of Felix, wrote over 500 pieces and was one of the first women composers to be published. Going back to medieval times, Isabella Leonardo, an Italian abbess, wrote about 200 pieces during the 17th century. Louise Ferrenc was France’s major woman composer of the 19th century. And there were many others.
In relatively modern times, Amy Beach is the most renowned women composer. She was the first American woman to have her work published. Her “Gaelic Symphony in E minor” was the first symphony composed and published by an American female composer. As a child she was considered a piano prodigy and performed extensively. When she married a surgeon, he made her limit her appearances to one charitable performance a year. In 1900 it was her own piano concerto with the Boston Symphony. After his death, she performed in Europe, playing her own music.
The Shaghoian concert will include the first live performance of a new choral work sponsored by the League of Women Voters with support from the Fresno County Office of Education and the Fresno Arts Council. Composer Joungman Sur, lyricist Glady Ruiz and videographer Jason Hopper worked together to create this beautiful and moving piece in honor of women’s struggles; it is called “One Hundred Years of a Thousand Tries.”
The performance will also have a chant by Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval scholar consulted by popes and monarchs; a work by Marianna Martines, who played piano duets with her buddy Mozart; along with contemporary music by Alice Parker, now in her 90s; Gwyneth Walker, an older New Englander; Abbie Betinis, a Minnesota composer who helped start the Justice Choir movement for community singing and advocacy; and Elaine Hagenberg , a popular choral composer. All of the music fits under the theme of justice, peace, and dignity.
To round out the afternoon, a lobby exhibit will recognize “100 Notable Women Who Have Made a Difference in Fresno.” Both the choral work and the posters were developed to celebrate the Suffrage Centennial in 2020. That event honored the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that gave women the right to vote. The League’s Suffrage Centennial Committee put on a number of community events during the year until the pandemic shut them down.
The exhibit was first shown publicly at the Fresno Art Museum in 2022 and later at Fresno State. The posters will be mounted on easels in the Shaghoian lobby. They feature photos of each woman and a brief biography. Most of the photos are the work of Howard Watkins, Fresno’s “photo laureate.” The biographies were written by league members from personal contact or research. The 100 Women include both past and present stand-outs in the arts, agriculture, athletics, business, community activism, education, government, law, health, and media.
Some of the deceased honorees include Dr. Jessie Hare, who in the late 19th century was one of the first female physicians in Fresno; Toya Ota Kazuto, a poet and artist who was a founder of the Japanese Congregational Church in Fresno and had the first recorded wedding in the church in 1910; and Mary Wylie, the president of the Fresno Parlor Lecture Club in 1911 and a supporter of suffrage. More current honorees include softball coach Margie Wright; retired Judge Hilary Chittick; Karen Humphrey, Fresno’s first female mayor; and Audra McDonald, six-time Tony award winning actress and singer.
Tickets are available for $25. Call 559-709-6245.
Francine M. Farber is the co-president of the League of Women Voters of Fresno.
