13 World Premieres Across the Globe Postponed due to Coronavirus
Through the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program, Classical Movements had planned a remarkable season of new music – with 13 new works now postponed due to COVID-19. Our 2020 season of new music included composers from all over the world , including six women , and would have featured premieres in cities including Seoul, South Korea ; Tokyo, Japan; Prague, the Czech Republic; Hanoi, Vietnam; Cap-Haitienne, Haiti and all across the United States , including Alexandria, VA and five powerful new works in Washington, D.C. as part of Classical Movements' 2020 Serenade! Choral Festival , honoring the women whose bravery and perseverance finally secured the vote.

With tours and concert seasons cancelled and the date when live performances can resume still uncertain, we’re celebrating the pieces we’re disappointed will also have to wait – works for orchestras, choruses and chamber ensembles that were not only written for our clients to take on tour , but also for one of our hometown orchestras to perform with its own El Sistema-inspired education program or for an admirable initiative bringing high-level training to young musicians in Haiti , as well as for our own choral, opera and orchestra festivals.

Portraits of Pioneers,
Progress and Purpose
With the cancellation of 10th annual Serenade! Washington, D.C. Choral Festival, we have had to delay our plans to celebrate “World Voices for Women: Pioneers, Progress, Purpose” in honor of the centennial of the ratification of the 19 th Amendment.

Classical Movements commissioned 5 brand-new choral works celebrating the legacy of five key suffragists, important figures whose roles in the movement have often been overlooked.
B.E. Boykin - Stand Up
in Honor of Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) was an educator, advocate for civil rights and the founding president of the National Association of Colored Women. Terrell began campaigning for suffrage during her undergraduate studies at Oberlin and continued to be active in the National Association Woman Suffrage Association, where she befriended Susan B. Anthony. Throughout the years leading up to the ratification of the 19 th Amendment, Terrell pushed for the involvement of black women in suffrage advocacy. In the years after, Terrell continued to draw public attention to injustices, particularly those faced by black Americans.

“What a reproach it is to a government which owes its very existence to the love of freedom in the human heart that it should deprive any of its citizens of their sacred and cherished rights.”
Arianne Abela - Now We Can Begin
in Honor of Crystal Eastman

Crystal Eastman (1881-1928) was a la wyer, founder of the ACLU and an active supporter of a range of progressive social causes, including workers’ rights and women’s suffrage. She was a founding member with Alice Paul and others of what would eventually become the National Woman’s Party. Even after the passage of the 19 th Amendment, she continued to advocate for women’s rights, drafting with Paul the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment.

“What is the problem of women's freedom? It seems to me to be this: how to arrange the world so that women can be human beings, with a chance to exercise their infinitely varied gifts in infinitely varied ways…” 
Melissa Dunphy - Mabel Lee, 1912
in Honor of Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (1896-1966) was an activist, writer and religious leader, particularly known for mobilizing support for women’s suffrage among New York’s Chinese immigrant community. Lee was outspoken in her support for women’s rights throughout her undergraduate and graduate career; Lee became the first woman to receive a PhD from Columbia University and soon after assumed leadership of the Baptist mission in Chinatown, to which she dedicated herself for the rest of her life.

“…the feministic movement is not one for privileges to women, but one for the requirement of women to be worthy citizens and contribute their share to the steady progress of our country toward prosperity and national greatness.” 
Adolphus Hailstork - Greatness of Nations
 in honor of Mary Burnett Talbert

M ary Burnett Talbert (1866-1923) was a lecturer, educator and activist, involved in a range of causes and particularly committed to voting rights – for both women and African-Americans. Talbert earned a university degree at a time when that wags still exceptionally rare for black women and dedicated her considerable talents as a writer and speaker to lecturing persuasively in support of social causes, including suffrage. She served as president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs and was involved in the short-lived, but influential Niagara Movement.

“It should not be necessary to struggle forever against popular prejudice, and with us as colored women, this struggle becomes two-fold, first, because we are women and second, because we are colored women.”
Evelyn Simpson-Curenton
Ode to Ida B. Wells 

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) was a groundbreaking journalist, whose investigative reporting exposed some of the most egregious injustices faced by African-Americans. Wells’s campaigning for women’s suffrage was deeply tied to her continued efforts towards the rights of African-Americans; Wells founded the Alpha Suffrage Club in 1913 and was fiercely critical of racism within the broader suffrage movement.

“I am not taking this stand because I personally wish for recognition. I am doing it for the future benefit of my whole race.”
Other 2020 premieres that have been postponed include: 
As part of Classical Movements support of the 2019 Chorus America Commission Consortium , shared by 28 youth, treble and mixed choruses across the country:
  • Norwegian Ola Gjeilo – “Roots”
(The only one of 14 planned premiers to proceed with a virtual
  • America J. Reese Norris – “This Is Who I am”

For the William & Mary Choir and Botetourt Chamber Singers, Jamie Armstrong, conductor : 
  • South Korean Hyowon Woo - Jubilate Deo
  • Japanese Teruaki Suzuki - Two Postcards

For the Haitian Orchestra Institute , Thierry Fischer , conductor:
  • Haitian Sydney Guillaume – Lavil Okap in honor of the 250th birthday of Beethoven

For the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and ASO Sympatico , James Ross , conductor
  • American Brian Prechtl – Tribute in honor of the 250th birthday of Beethoven

For the Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä , conductor:
  • Vietnamese Do Hong Quan - Ruoc Truong for orchestra and dan bau
  • Vietnamese Tran Manh Hung - Khai Xuân Mở Hội
  • In honor of the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the USA and Vietnam

For the 2020 Prague Summer Nights: Young Arts Music Festival :
  • Czech Sylvie Bodorová – Silymabum for string quartet

ABOUT CLASSICAL MOVEMENTS
Since 2006, Classical Movements has commissioned 97 new works of music for orchestra, choir and chamber ensembles by 94 composers from 30 countries, two-thirds being women and/or composers of color . Composers commissioned by the New Music Program include well-established and emerging names, such as Kinan Azmeh, Therese Birkelund Ulvo, John Corigliano, Paquito D’Rivera, Reena Esmail, Libby Larsen, Mokale Koapeng, Jessie Montgomery, Tania León, Christopher Rouse, Caroline Shaw, Christopher Theofanidis and Joan Tower. Commissioned composers have won a combined total of 5 Grammys, 4 Pulitzers, an Oscar and a MacArthur Grant.
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