Music by Women celebrates 10 years
Mississippi University for Women will celebrate the 10th year of the annual International Music by Women festival, March 5-7, on The W’s campus.
Established in 2017 by Dr. Julia Mortyakova, chair of the Department of Music at The W, the festival aims to promote women’s work in the musical space, both historically and present day.
“I am really excited to celebrate 10 years of the International Annual Music by Women Festival,” Mortyakova said. “It has been an honor and a joy to provide a platform where colleagues from all around the world share music written by women composers. We are the largest festival of its kind and our advocacy efforts to include more women composers are making a difference on concert stages and in academic classrooms.”
This year’s festival will include 15 concerts, five a day, starting at 10 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. All concerts will be held in Kossen Auditorium in Poindexter Hall.
In addition to W faculty and students, the performers come from institutions of higher education both domestically and internationally.
Some of the institutions represented include: the University of Southern Mississippi, Florida State University, Central Michigan University, Arkansas State University, the University of Florida, Texas A&M University- San Antonio, the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the University of Memphis, Mississippi Valley State University, the University of Tennessee at Martin, The Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow (Poland), Music Academy in Bydgoszcz, Poland, the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma to name a few.
All concerts are free and open to the public. Each concert will be livestreamed on the festival YouTube channel as well.
In addition to the concerts, there will be various academic presentations throughout the three days. These include lecture recitals, which are academic presentations with a performance demonstration, and paper presentations. Registration is required to attend the sessions. W students, faculty and staff can attend all events for free.
To register, please visit longblueline.muw.edu/events/music-by-women-festival-registration.
For a full schedule of events, please visit muw.edu/musicbywomen, and for questions about the festival, contact Mortyakova at musicbywomen@muw.edu.
The festival is supported, in part, by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.