October 12, 2018
5 min read

Phenomenal Women - Composer Spotlight: Valerie Coleman

American Composers Orchestra gives the world premiere of Valerie Coleman's Phenomenal Women – a concerto for wind quintet and orchestra featuring Imani Winds – on Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here


Valerie Coleman is among the world’s most played composers living today. The Boston Globe describes Coleman as a having a “talent for delineating form and emotion with shifts between ingeniously varied instrumental combinations,” and The New York Times has praised her “skillfully wrought, buoyant music.” With works that range from flute sonatas that recount the stories of trafficked humans during Middle Passage and orchestral and chamber works based on nomadic Roma tribes, to scherzos about moonshine in the Mississippi Delta region and motifs based from Morse Code, her body of works has been highly regarded as a deeply relevant contribution to modern music.


We spoke with Valerie about her ACO/Carnegie Hall commission Phenomenal Women. The work is inspired by Maya Angelou's poem and book Phenomenal Women, and honors Angelou, as well as Claressa Shields, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, Katherine Johnson, and Immigrant Mothers, with solo interludes by members of Imani Winds. The world premiere is Friday, November 2, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. More information here





Learn more about Valerie Coleman at www.vcolemanmusic.com
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American Composers Orchestra is grateful to the many organizations that make its programs possible, including the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Altman Foundation, Amphion Foundation, Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, BMI Foundation, BMI, Inc., CANVAS, Cheswatyr Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ford Foundation’s Good Neighbor Committee, Francis B. Goelet Charitable Trust, Frederick Loewe Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation, G. Schirmer/Wise Music Foundation, Give Lively Foundation, Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Hearst Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jephson Educational Trusts, Jerome Foundation, Koret Foundation, the League of American Orchestras, MacMillan Family Foundation, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Mellon Foundation, Neiman Marcus, New Music USA’s Organization Fund, the New York Community Trust (Musical Arts Fund, Clara Lewisohn Rossin Trust, and Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund), Pacific Harmony Foundation, PayPal Giving Fund, Sphinx Venture Fund, Steven R. Gerber Trust, TD Charitable Foundation, Turrell Fund, and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Public funds are provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, Office of Brooklyn Borough President Reynoso, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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