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Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini (* October 17, 1720 in Milan; † January 19, 1795 ibid.) was an Italian composer and harpsichordist.

She sent a collection of arias to the Electress Maria Antonia Walpurgis, who was herself musically active as a composer and performer.
Furore Verlag has published three arias from this collection, edited by Michael Goldbach. It is documented that even the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa personally performed arias by Maria Teresa Agnesis. The twelve arias prove her ability to mirror the affects of a dramatic situation through harmony, vocal writing, and instrumentation.

New at Furore: An anthology of works for guitar resulting from a concert project with Stefan Barcsay Throw your fear into the air featuring works by:

Dorothea Hofmann: “Still …” (2021) for guitar solo and “Noch” (2021) for voice and guitar (text: Rose Ausländer)
Barbara Mayer: Discurso Poético (2022) (inspired by a northern Brazilian “Martelo agalopado”)
Florentine Mulsant: Poème pour guitare op. 113 (2022)
Vivienne Olive: …your dreams fall into nowhere… (2022) (Barafostus’ Dream)
Larisa Vrhunc Na Vetru (2022) (In the wind)

Some years ago Stefan Barcsay discovered a book of poems by Rose Ausländer with the poem NOCH BIST DU DA (You Are Still There), which fitted in perfectly with a concert trip to Ukraine to Lviv and Chernowitz that he was planning at the time. This had to be cancelled and instead the tour began in Suceava, in the Romanian part of Bukovina. Since then, many compositions for the project WIRF DEINE ANGST IN DIE LUFT (a line from the poem “Noch bist du da” by Rose Ausländer) have been written and premiered by Stefan Barcsay.

A Piccolo Concerto that Deserves a Performance

Florentine Mulsant’s 13-minute Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra was highly praised by reviewer Carla Rees in the British flute magazine PAN:

Perhaps one of the most notable features of the piece is the timbral quality achieved by the piccolo; one usually associates the piccolo with high, bright and even squeaky sounds, but in this piece, the focus is on expression, delicacy, lightness and timbral variation. Mulsant’s piccolo rarely ventures into the high register, instead she features the earthiness of the low register and
the sweetness of the middle register. This is a notable work that deserves to become an established part of the repertoire.

Concerto pour piccolo et orchestre op. 72 No. 2 and 
Concerto pour piccolo et piano

The Mecklenburg composer Emilie Mayer, whose life dates are almost identical to those of Richard Wagner, was astonishingly successful in her time, her works were performed, many of them
appeared in print. After her death from pneumonia in 1883, however, she fell into oblivion surprisingly quickly.

2023 marks the 140th anniversary of her death († April 10, 1883 in Berlin). To mark the occasion, there are a number of concerts in March, April and May – here’s a small selection:

On March 24 and 25, 2023, a concert commemorating the 140th anniversary of the death of EMILIE MAYER († 10 APRIL 1883 IN BERLIN), featuring her Piano Concerto in B-flat Major. Conductor: Andreas Spering, piano: Katharina Königsfeld. On March 30 and April 1 and 2, there is a concert by the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra: EMILIE MAYER RETROSPEKTIVE with her Symphony in F minor. The Orchestra of the University of Nebraska – Lincoln will play the Symphony in F minor on April 13. Le Rhin Lyrique will play …

The talented song composer Josephine Lang (* 14 March 1815 in Munich; † 2 December 1880 in Tübingen) was born into a family of musicians in Munich. She heard her godfather, Karl Stieler, who had painted portraits of Beethoven and Goethe, talk about these ‘intellectual heroes’. Her meeting with the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1830 was a turning point in her artistic development. She recalled: “The encounter with this master brought about a complete upheaval in my being. His spirit brought me light, his work gave me an ideal.” Mendelssohn urged her to keep her talent sacred and not to squander her gifts in societies.

The city of Tübingen has announced the 1st Josephine Lang Competition for Lied Duo in her honour. Registration for the 1st Josephine Lang Competition for Lied Duo is open from 15 May to 15 July 2023.

International Women’s Day originated in the struggle for equal rights and the right to vote for women and was first initiated by the Social Democrat Clara Zetkin on March 19, 1911. Millions of women from several countries demonstrated publicly on that day with the battle cry “Out with women’s suffrage!” for equal pay and a right to co-determination. In 1921, Women’s Day was then set for March 8 at Zetkin’s request, because on March 8, 1917, women textile workers in St. Petersburg had gone on strike under the slogan “Peace and Bread!”, making the day globally significant.

International Women’s Day is a public holiday in 26 countries around the world. Within Germany, only in the state of Berlin – since 2019.

In keeping with Women’s Day, Furore Verlag has published four volumes of the “Mund auf statt Klappe zu” series in recent years, featuring songs from the international women’s movement from various eras and countries. The history of the women’s movement includes numerous songs that musically underscored and loudly expressed demands for equal rights, appropriate working conditions, political and social participation, self-determination and development. The selection, which ranges from workers’ songs to women’s suffrage songs and self-determination songs, takes into account different …

Margarete Schweikert was born in Karlsruhe on February 16, 1887. She made her first attempts at composition at the age of ten. She composed more than 100 songs. In addition, she wrote songs for choir, compositions for piano and organ, and some chamber music works for various instrumentations with a clear emphasis on her instrument, the violin. Various song collections and piano and chamber music have been published by Furore. More info here.

he Dutch clarinettist Kymia Kermani and the Italian pianist Alba Gentili invite with their CD “Invocation – Anrufung” to a journey of discovery dedicated to the work of European women composers from the Romantic period to the present.

Irene Suchy has now presented the CD on Austrian Radio.
Click here for the CD review!

In close cooperation with the Furore Verlag and other institutions the concept for Raphaela Gromes’ new album FEMMES was born: a double album with works by 23 women composers. The world premiere recording of the “Tre Momenti” for cello and string orchestra by Italian composer Matilde Capuis can be heard on FEMMES.

“With FEMMES, I can finally make the works and life stories of these wonderful women accessible to a wide audience,” says Raphaela Gromes about her new album, which will be released by Sony Classical. Raphaela Gromes is accompanied on FEMMES by Festival Strings Lucerne and its artistic director Daniel Dodds, with whom she has a long-standing collaboration, as well as by pianist Julian Riem, who also wrote all the arrangements on the album.

FEMMES is available for pre-order now and in stores from February 3, 2023: f.e. here

Chinese/Canadian composer Hope Lee turned 70 on January 14, 2023. Congratulations!

Hope Lee was born in Taiwan in 1953 and immigrated to Canada in 1967. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto before going on to McGill University to study piano and composition. Further studies in composition took her to the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, in Breisgau, Germany, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany) and the Durham Oriental Music Festival in England. Among her composition teachers were Bengt Hambraeus, Brian Cherney, and Klaus Huber. Between 1987 and 1990 Lee studied Chinese traditional music and poetry, as well as computer music, in Berkeley, California. Lee has composed music for various combinations of instruments, almost exclusively for chamber ensembles. Many have been performed at international music festivals and have won major awards. She has been engaged as a guest composer at festivals and universities in Asia, Europe and Canada. Hope‘s work can be heard on Attacca (Germany/Holland), Aurait (Italy), Centrediscs, SNE and UNICAL (Canada) recording labels.  Furore-Verlag publishes all her works.

“Ms. Lee is one of Canada’s most accomplished composers who …