Residency at Cornell University

All the Flowers Were Mine

Rhianna Cockrell, mezzo-soprano
Gloria Yin, piano

Thursday April 11, 7:30-8:30pm
Sage Chapel, 147 Ho Plaza, Ithaca, NY 14853

Open to the public

All the Flowers Were Mine is an art song recital celebrating trailblazing femme creatives, featuring the music of Cecile Chaminade, Nadia Boulanger, and the world premiere of Amelia Brey’s All the Flowers Were Mine, as well as H. Leslie Adams’s settings of renowned poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay. This project features lush, evocative harmonies and elegant text-painting of beautiful poetry, offering a sound world that is expressive, warm, and inviting.

Threads of Light

Cornell University Chorus
New Muses Project
Joe Lerangis, conductor
Camilla Tassi, projection designer

Friday April 12, 7:30-9pm
Sage Chapel, 147 Ho Plaza, Ithaca, NY 14853

Open to the public

Threads of Light is an immersive auditory and visual experience, a collaborative effort of the Cornell Chorus, New Muses Project, DMA Composer María Bulla, and Projection Designer Camilla Tassi. The concert showcases choral music by Melissa Dunphy, Ernani Aguiar, Julio Morales, Joan Szymko, and Dale Trumbore. The project will also include electroacoustic meditations in the form of works by Beatriz Ferreyra and Laurie Spiegel, and the world-premiere of Bulla's mixed media composition las nubes donde crecen los jardines featuring mezzo-soprano Rhianna Cockrell. The concert is designed as a seamlessly knit tapestry of peace, light, and growth, a blanket to quell the flames of a world that loves violence and urgency.

New Muses Project Talkback

Carter Miller, Lead Musicologist, New Muses Project
Gloria Yin, President of New Muses Project Board of Directors

Saturday April 13, 1-2pm
Lincoln Hall B20, 256 Feeney Wy, Ithaca, NY 14853

Open to the public

This talkback will position New Muses Project’s residency at Cornell within a larger historiographical movement of diversity, equity, and inclusion work. After briefly historicizing DEI initiatives in classical music, this presentation will contextualize the numerous composers featured during the week within a larger discussion of how New Muses has strategically planned its residency with regards to our unique mission and values. The lecture will end with a structured Q&A session focusing on how to approach composers with warmth, openness, and curiosity.

The Life and Music of Edmund Thornton Jenkins

Tuffus Zimbabwe, Presenter

Sunday April 14, 5-6pm
Lincoln Hall B20, 256 Feeney Wy, Ithaca, NY 14853

Open to the public

This presentation focuses on the life and compositions of Edmund Thornton Jenkins (1894-1926), an internationally acclaimed composer from South Carolina who worked primarily in London and Paris. Led by Jenkins’s great-nephew, renowned musician Tuffus Zimbabwe, this session will feature live and recorded performances of Jenkins’s works, provide historical contextualization of Jenkins and his family, and discuss contemporary efforts to program and research Jenkins.

New Muses Project is planning recording sessions for two album releases. One album will be a studio release of Rhianna and Gloria's art song program, featuring Cecile Chaminade, Nadia Boulanger, Leslie Adams, and the premier recording of Amelia Brey's All the Flowers Were Mine. The other will feature two never-recorded string quartets: Luise Adolpha Le Beau's String Quartet in G minor, and Zenobia Powell Perry's String Quartet No. 1.