The Pen Woman, Summer 2024:
Listening at the Biennial
By Elizabeth Lauer
The savvy Biennial organizers elicited the generosity of the Johnstone Fund for New Music to support the performances of the music competition winning pieces. Five professional players were engaged, each of whose skills and experience gave full voice to the composers’ thoughts, with clear musical expressivity and instrumental confidence.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2024:
Composing ‘Tsunami’
By Candace Long
A poem about a devastating event overwhelms Candace Long with its emotions, inspiring her to compose a song. She used ProTools for better freedom over certain sound effects.
The Pen Woman, Winter 2024:
Musical Dramatist Cinzi Lavin
By Elizabeth Lauer, Music Editor
Cinzi Lavin is a multifaceted musician whose career includes composing, voice and piano performing, producing, teaching, and conducting. She is involved in many activities promoting the art of music and has been recognized with many awards.
The Pen Woman, Fall 2023:
One Studio, 25 Pianos
By Elizabeth Lauer, Music Editor
Elizabeth Lauer shares the experience of teaching piano to a group of students learning the language of music.
The Pen Woman, Summer 2023:
Composing for Piano Students
By Elizabeth Lauer, Music Editor
For more than 40 years, Eugénie Rocherolle has been composing music for intermediate-level college students to learn and perfect their craft, as well as numerous other compositions and choral and instrumental pieces.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2023:
Hearing a Rhapsody
By Elizabeth Lauer, Music Editor
In composing her “Rhapsody in E Minor for Cello and Piano,” Washington, D.C., Pen Woman Grace Joy Reid had to consider how to handle the ensemble of two essentially disparate instruments — the cello and the piano. Music editor Elizabeth Lauer explores Reid’s process and the award-winning result.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2022:
Six Keys to Success for Women Musicians
By Joan Cartwright, PhD
Joan Cartwright, PhD, an internationally renowned jazz vocalist, composer, author, promoter, and entrepreneur, shares her tips on branding, marketing, networking, teamwork, negotiating, and accounting. While this article was written specifically for female jazz musicians, female musicians of every genre — as well as visual artists and authors — will benefit from adding business these skills to their toolbox.
The Pen Woman, Summer 2021:
Vinnie Ream Music Competition Winner Dawna Hammers
By Kathy Pate, Music Editor
Dawna Hammers had recently traded her spinet and keyboard for a beautiful parlor grand piano, whose rich, vibrant sound helped inspire her while writing “Deep Inside,” one of her masterpieces. Previously the winner of the NLAPW Mature Women’s Grant, she also recently created a video for her song “I’m Alive” with the funds received from NLAPW.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2021:
Presenting Two Honorary Music Members
By Kathy Pate, Music Editor
A warm welcome to our two new honorary music members: Judy Collins and Beth Nielsen Chapman. They each embody the driving force of Pen Women, having devoted their lives to writing and performing amazing music, teaching, and community service, as well as being very successful in the music field. We are honored to include them in our membership.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2020:
Introducing Two New Music Members
By Kathy Pate, National Music Chair
NLAPW would like to welcome and introduce two of our newest music members: Dr. Roumena Georgieva (Atlanta Branch, Georgia) and Mary Fineman (Concord-Alameda Branch, California). Roumena Georgieva, PhD, is an accomplished violinist with an international solo-performing career spanning five decades. Mary Fineman, originally from Baltimore, began her musical career as a classical pianist and accompanist who could improvise and play in different genres.
The Pen Woman, Summer 2019:
The Creative Life
By Kathy Pate, National Music Chair
Over the past 100 years, women have made great strides in independence, legally as well as on the home front. This has created new opportunities, as evidenced by Pen Women music members such as Amy Beach, Gena Branscombe, and Evelyn Swensson. Greater numbers of women are now professors, independent artists, successful composers, and performers in their own right. We can marry or remain single. We can also reinvent ourselves as new opportunities arise. Evelyn Swensson, of the Wilmington Branch, Delaware, is a contemporary example of a vibrant, creative life.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2019:
Gena Branscombe: Renowned Composer Back in the Spotlight
By Kathy Pate, National Music Chair
Pen Woman Gena Branscombe (1881-1977) was a Canadian-born composer, pianist, music educator, and choral conductor who spent her adult life and career in the United States. Her music career was well under way prior to her marriage, at a time when women were not encouraged to have a music career. Branscombe actively supported many American musical organizations and provided strong support for equal recognition for women composers. She was renowned in her time, yet like many composers, was falling into obscurity until a contemporary mezzo-soprano named Kathleen Shimeta decided to champion her music and bring it back into public awareness — much as Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn brought about a revival of Bach’s music in the 19th century.
The Pen Woman, Winter 2019:
Stephie Rae Grenier: Soothing with Harmonic Frequencies
By Kathy Pate, National Music Chair
Music has always been central to Stephie Rae Grenier’s life. She has been singing since she began talking; took up piano at 7, clarinet at 10, guitar at 12, and sax in high school and college; and majored in voice performance at University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse. She also played clarinet and percussion in the orchestra, and clarinet and tenor sax in the marching band and the alumni band.
The Pen Woman, Fall 2018:
The Heart of a Composer: Melissa Gordon Rhine
By Kathy Pate, National Music Chair
Composers fall into a unique class of creatives. A bird singing, humpback whales singing, crickets chirping, the sound of wind blowing, or a tragedy can inspire a melody to be sculpted into a symphony, a sonata, a song to be sung, or a hymn.
While drawing from knowledge of musical form and theory, music must be inspired by a deep, mystical source for the finished composition to be original and appealing. Composing involves translating this unseen force into the language of music to convey a sound, a feeling, a dynamic, a story.
A visual analogy of this dynamic can be seen in Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where God is touching Adam’s hand to give him the spark of life. The resulting, inspired music can provide lyrics to be sung, or it can simply use instruments to tell the story and evoke a certain response in the listener or performer.
Pen Woman Melissa Gordon Rhine (Atlanta Branch) recently finished a musical that was inspired by Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir titled “Night.” She was deeply moved to compose a suite of seven songs after reading his book.
The Pen Woman, Spring 2018:
Dr. Joan Cartwright: The League’s Next Chapter
By Virginia Franklin Campbell, Music Editor
Dr. Joan Cartwright, our newest music member, Boca Raton Branch, Florida, lights a path on our horizon. A quote from Dr. Diva JC expresses the feeling that is conveyed when speaking with her, “When you are a joy to yourself, it is easy to be a joy to others.” Dr. Cartwright presently is a professor of speech communication at both Keiser University in Pembroke Pines and Southeastern College in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is a composer, lecturer, poet, author, and historian, primarily on women musicians and composers.
The Pen Woman, Fall 2017:
Celebrating Amy Beach
By Margaret Mills, Greenwich Branch
This fall, we are celebrating the 150th birthday of this renowned American composer and Pen Woman. My recently issued recording, “A Celebration of Early American Composers: Beach-Crawford-Ives,” has been one way of my celebrating Amy Beach. Celebrating her invites one to look back at the Victorian era, into which she was born, as Amy Marcy Cheney.
The Pen Woman, Summer 2017:
Phyllis Fergus and Pen Women Composers at the White House
By Marian Wilson Kimber
Professor of Musicology, University of Iowa
Phyllis Fergus (1887–1964) was the first musician president of the National League of American Pen Women. Energetic and ambitious, Fergus wanted to organize concerts of music by women composers all over the country. She believed that national recognition for women’s music could be achieved through performances at governor’s mansions in every state. While she was not successful in achieving this aim, Fergus did arrange two historic concerts of music by Pen Women at the White House.
The Pen Woman, Winter 2016:
Dr. M.J. ‘Sunny’ Zank: A Radiance of Accomplishment and Service to Music
By Virginia Franklin Campbell, Music Editor, and Verne D. Campbell
Dr. M.J. “Sunny” Zank, national music chair, is an inspired composer, a gifted violinist who has played in orchestras on several continents, an acclaimed university professor, and a highly skilled administrator who has held many diverse positions. It is impossible to fully capture in a single, brief article the breadth and depth of study and the multiplicity of experiences that she has had.
The Pen Woman, Fall 2016:
Nancy Bloomer Deussen: Determined, Devoted, Distinguished
By Virginia Franklin Campbell, Music Editor, and Verne D. Campbell
Nancy Bloomer Deussen, whose composition for orchestra, “Trinity Alps,” won first place in NLAPW’s first conferring of the Vinnie Ream Awards, is a woman of incredible talent, a survivor, and a devoted wife and mother, all while being a humble and engaging woman.
Nancy was born and raised in New York City. Although very poor, her father was a musician and worked in the recording industry. That would play significantly in Nancy’s early years, as he offered free recordings to her music teacher in return for piano lessons.
Nancy’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was also a friend of George Gershwin, which undoubtedly left an impression on Nancy’s young life. Her father also taught her music notation, and she wrote her first composition for piano at age 11.
“I always knew I was a composer; I was born with perfect pitch*, which is inherited. I started playing melodies by ear on the piano at about age 4 or 5, and started ‘official’ piano lessons at age 6 or 7,” she says.