WoCo Fest 2023 Awaken: Opening Concert
In person: $20-$32 ($10-$32 student) |
Stream: $4.99
- Alma Ensemble
- Arco Belo
- Bryan Young, bassoon
- Megan Digeorgio
- Natalie Groom, clarinet
- Simone Baron, accordion & piano
- Christylez Bacon
- Bolo Brass Quintet
An accordion from the streets of Paris, a lush piano trio by famed suffragette Ethel Smyth, a beatboxing master, a local all-girls choir, and so much more to discover. You are certain to come away heartstruck with something you never knew you were missing. The opening night of WoCo Fest 2023: Awaken will leave you enraptured, delighted, and giddy.
Can't make it to WoCo Fest 2023 Awaken in person? The Opening Concert and Roomful of Teeth will be livestreamed!
About WoCo Fest
The Boulanger Initiative's annual multi-day Women Composers Festival, WoCo Fest, features works by women and gender-marginalized composers performed by local and nationally-acclaimed performers.
https://www.boulangerinitiative.org/woco-festAbout Alma Ensemble
Alma Ensemble is a musician collective dedicated to championing women in music, education, and creating connection through music.
Sarah Wardle Jones, flute |
Michelle Smith Johnson, clarinet |
Erica Sipes, piano
About Arco Belo
ARCO BELO is a group of high-energy improvisers dedicated to redefining the concert form. Drawing its name from the words bow and bellow, the GenreFluid ensemble captures an irreverent sound melding reeds, strings, and percussive timbres. Led by pianist, accordionist, and composer Simone Baron, their adventurous compositions reimagine a sound at the junction of avant-garde chamber music, creative jazz, Brazilian music, and Jewish diasporic music. Together, they skip effortlessly from long-form Neo-baroque string counterpoint to sludgy hip-hop pads. Post-romantic cadenzas collide in moments of spontaneous noise with reedy prepared piano; guttural bow noises and cascading plectrum bring color to plush hypnotic grooves and sharply angled linear phrases.
https://arcobelo.com/About Bryan Young, bassoon
Bryan tours the US and internationally as bassoonist and co-founder of the Poulenc Trio. Bryan serves as the principal bassoonist of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and is a member of the IRIS Orchestra in Memphis. Bryan studied at the Peabody Conservatory with Linda Harwell and at Yale with Frank Morelli. A winner and finalist in competitions including the Gillet International Bassoon Competition and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Bryan has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra. The Washington Post writes that his playing "dances with a lightness and grace uncommon for his instrument,' and the Baltimore Sun has praised his "particularly beautiful playing, technical agility and understated elegance.'
https://bryanyoung.info/About Natalie Groom, clarinet
Dr. Natalie Groom is a clarinetist, educator, composer, and arts manager in Maryland where she is the clarinet professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. A few of Natalie’s performance career highlights include being a featured soloist with the White Mountain Symphony Orchestra and performing at The Kennedy Center, New World Center, The Anthem, Phillips Collection, Austrian and Spanish Embassies, and Goethe-Institut. She has toured China with the Fred Fox Quintet and performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, Baltimore Symphony Youth Ensemble, Annapolis Symphony, Annapolis Opera, Tucson Symphony, and Symphony of the Potomac.
https://www.nataliegroom.com/About Simone Baron, accordion & piano
A fearless and charismatic presence, Simone Baron is a concert pianist, accordionist and composer of infectious energy. She engages with a broad range of musical languages, traditions, and art forms, and has since performed throughout Europe, Israel and North America (Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center). While finishing her formal studies in piano and conducting at the Buchmann-Mehta School (Tel Aviv University) and Oberlin Conservatory, she fell in love with the accordion. Its vibrant sounds and pulsing bellows breathed new life into her musical world which opened the door to multidisciplinary collaborations with dancers, puppeteers, visual artists. In 2016, she founded the ensemble Arco Belo, leading th in performances of compositions and arrangements that reveal a gargantuan musical appetite which pulls language from the jazz, world and contemporary chamber music idioms orchestrated for strings, percussion, bass and piano/accordion. Recently an artist in residence at the Banff Centre, Strathmore and the Washington Jewish Music Festival, Simone's work focuses on experimenting, reimagining and forging a sound at the junction of the familiar and the avant-garde.
https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/b/ba-bn/simone-baron/