Midsummer’s Music Festival Continues With “Indomitable Spirits”

Door County’s Midsummer’s Music continues its 2017 festival season with the “Indomitable Spirits” program, featuring music by three female composers who lived between 1804 and 1944: Mélanie “Mel” Bonis, Louise Farrenc, and Amy Cheney Beach.

Bonis led a double and, most of the time, a troubled life. Much of this was brought on by her parents and by the societal limitations women of that era experienced. She was a prolific French classical composer, and she wrote more than 300 compositions. Midsummer’s ensemble will perform her “Suite in E Minor, Op. 59.”

Farrenc took up piano at an early age and by 15 was studying composition with prominent figures in the early nineteenth century Paris. The combination of instruments – flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and piano – in Farrenc’s “Sextet in C Minor, Op. 40,” had never been done when she composed the piece in 1851-2.

Beach is one of America’s greatest composers. A child prodigy, she began composing music at age four and performing publicly at age seven. She made her piano debut with the Boston Symphony at age 17 playing the Chopin “F Minor Concerto.” Her “Quintet in C Minor, Op. 52” will be performed.

Actors from the community will portray the three composers and audiences will learn about the challenges and triumphs these women faced in a music world dominated by men.

The “Indomitable Spirits” concerts are set for: June 30, 7 pm, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship; July 1, 7:30 pm, Björklunden; July 7, 7 pm, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; and July 8, 2 pm, at The Clearing Folk School. Tickets are $29 for adults, $10 for students, and free for children 12 and under. Tickets can be ordered at midsummersmusic.com or by calling 920.854.7088.