Women in Music Lecture-Recital Series: Women as Muses

Community Music School - Lehigh Valley & Berks (CMS) is pleased to announce a new Free Brown Bag Lecture-Recital Series for the Spring 2020 season. CMS faculty members Julia Katherine Walsh, soprano, and Dr. Tzu-Hwa Ho, piano, will present and perform selections highlighting “Women in Music”. The three-part monthly series will explore women in music as muses, performers, and composers. This free lunchtime program will be held on the third Wednesday of each month (March, April, May) from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in the Dorothy H. Baker Recital Hall at Community Music School, 1544 Hamilton Street, Allentown. On March 18, “Women as Muses,” will feature Rich-ard Strauss's Mädchenblumen Lieder, Opus 22, and Andre Previn's Three Dickinson Songs. On April 15, “Women as Performers,” will feature songs that were calling cards for singers such as Joan Sutherland, Kathleen Battle, and Beverly Sills. Finally, on May 20, “Women as Composers” will highlight the works of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Gloria Coates, and Amy H.H. Beach.

Guests are welcome to bring their own lunch to enjoy during the presentation. Water, coffee, and cookies will be provided. Admission and parking are free, and reservations for groups of five or more are appreciated by calling 610-435-7725. For those who cannot attend the lecture-recital in person, they can tune into the live feed on Facebook at “Community Music School, Allentown.” A recording will also be available on CMS’s YouTube channel at a later date.

More information is also available at https://cmslv.org/lecturerecital_series.aspx.

About the Artists:

Julia Katherine Walsh is a champion of the music of women composers as well as the lesser-known works of Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss. She’s enjoyed operatic successes in both the USA and Germany, singing the roles of Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, among many others. She holds a M.A. in Voice (Opera) from Hunter College of The City University of New York and a B.M. in Voice Performance from Westminster Choir College. She has been teaching voice at CMS since 2018.

Dr. Tzu-Hwa Ho is an experienced collaborative pianist, who has worked extensively with vocalists in art songs and operatic repertoire. At fourteen, she made her concerto debut in the City Hall of Salerno, Italy, and at sixteen, she gave her first solo recital in Taipei. She holds a D.M.A. in Piano Performance from the University of Kansas, a M.M. in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, and a B.M. in Piano Performance from the University of Missouri in St. Louis. She teaches piano at CMS and is also a staff accompanist at Rutgers University.