Spotlight on Sara Langmead, Coordinator of the Women’s History Month Performance Festival
On March 8, students and families attending lessons and events at MacPhail Minneapolis will be treated to an array of music by women and non-binary composers, performed by faculty and students on the Gary Sipes Stage.
Sara Langmead, one of MacPhail’s talented teaching artists, is heading up this Women’s History Month Performance Festival.
“Listeners will be invited to sit in the atrium and absorb as much gorgeous music as they want,” she says. “I will be giving highlights and fun facts about the composers and their pieces before each performance, with an ongoing slideshow of noteworthy composer and musician portraits.”
Langmead strongly believes that her students need to see themselves represented in the compositions they hear, learn, and love. “I am gradually training myself in non-Western European repertoire from around the world so I understand the theory, history, and culture of the music, and can confidently present new piano pieces vital and worthy of study and performance,” she says. She has just finished the first draft of her “Diverse, Equal, Inclusive, and Accessible Syllabus” that contains more than 850 compositions.
“When I was a graduate student at Johns Hopkins, it was rare for compositions by female composers to be researched and performed,” she says. “During my first music history seminar on American Art Song, I found myself doing research deep in the Peabody Conservatory archives and discovered Emma Steiner, a 19th century Baltimore composer and conductor who was the first woman to conduct an opera at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her songs and operas led me to the NY Public Library and the Library of Congress where tiny bits of information on microfiche and microfilm were my only primary sources of information. I loved piecing together her timeline and understanding and performing her music so much.”
Langmead found herself wondering why she was the only person researching the extremely talented and capable Steiner. “My deep interest in female composers and performers developed over the next five years and led to my doctoral thesis on the piano compositions of 1991 Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Shulamit Ran. In studying and performing works by Steiner and Ran, I felt seen and heard.”
Here is a sampling the many composers and countries who will be represented in the Festival:
Africa and the African Diaspora: Lawren Brianna Ware, Valarie Capers, Rhiannon Giddens, Nkeiru Okoye, Roberta Flack, Marian Anderson, Konya Kanneh-Mason, Florence Quivar
Argentina: Mariia Luisa Anido
Brazil: Viuva Guerreiro, Caclida Borges Barbosa
China: Du Yun, Xiaoying Zheng
France: Melanie Bonis, Hedwige Cretien, Nadia Boulanger
Indigenous First People of Canada and USA: Beverley McKiver, Dawn Avery, V. Jessica Sparvier-Wells, Renata Yazzie
Japan: Sumi Jo, Maria Kaneko Miller
Latvia: Dace Aperane
Russia: Luba Edlina
South Korea: Sung Geum-ryun, Lee Seuunghee, Wie Jungyoon
UK: Wendy Carlos
USA: Florence Rea, Billie Eilish, Catherine Rollin, Sara Davis Buechner, Helen May Butler, Kim Petras
A Minnesota native, Dr. Sara Langmead made her orchestral debut at age 16 with the 3M Symphony Orchestra. She won first prizes in the MN Schubert Club and UW-Madison Concerto competitions at the collegiate level, studied with György Sebők for two summers at the Banff Centre, and in 1997 won first prize at the international SAI Competition. Dr. Langmead earned her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where she studied piano for seven years with Yoheved Kaplinsky (current chair of the Juilliard Piano Department). Dr. Langmead taught piano at St. Mary’s College-MD, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and at Mercyhurst University-PA as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Department Director. Returning to Minnesota in 2004, Dr. Langmead built and operated a successful piano studio in Circle Pines.
Learn more about Sara here…