World Premiere: The Maud Powell Project

Youtube livestream: https://youtu.be/HCFmiPqq_h8

The Maud Powell Project celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and Women’s Suffrage with five new works for solo violin inspired by and dedicated to violinist Maud Powell. The works, commissioned by violinist Megan Healy and written by American composers Lauren Bernofsky, Elisabeth Blair, Stephanie Ann Boyd, Jessica Meyer, and Hilary Purrington, were recorded at the University of Denver in August 2020 and will be premiered in Chicago in May 2021. The works will subsequently be performed in a variety of contexts, including solo violin recitals, lecture recitals, and outreach performances with dancers from Life/Art Dance ensemble for children and for senior citizens living in low-income housing communities in the Denver Metro area. The album, Aurora: A Tribute to Maud Powell, will be released in on March 12, 2021.

Michigan-based violinist Megan Healy is an active pedagogue, recitalist, and performer of orchestral and chamber music. Megan enjoys a multifaceted career as a freelance performing artist and teacher. Megan has held positions with the Kalamazoo, Southwest Michigan, Cheyenne (WY), Holland (MI), and Southeast Iowa symphony orchestras. Additionally, she has performed with the West Michigan Symphony, Battle Creek Symphony, Boulder Philharmonic, Fort Collins Symphony, Greeley Philharmonic, and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. Her debut album, Aurora: A Tribute to Maud Powell, was released in March 2021.

Megan maintains a thriving private studio of students between ages 5 and 75. Inspired by her adult students, her doctoral research focused on engaging the adult learner in beginning violin lessons. In addition, Megan is currently a violin and viola instructor for Kalamazoo Kids In Tune. A partnership between the Kalamazoo Symphony and the Kalamazoo Public Schools, KKIT is an innovative after-school orchestra and youth development program. Students from early elementary through high school study instruments and chamber music and participate in daily lessons and orchestra rehearsals. After-school meals and busing make the program widely accessible. Inspired in part by the El Sistema movement, Kids in Tune combines elements of Social Justice, Social and Emotional Learning, and traditional music instruction to create conscientious citizens first and skilled musicians second.

As an avid chamber musician, Megan has been coached by members of the Tackács, Pacifica, American, Cavani, Daedalus, JACK, Jupiter, Fry Street, Avalon, and Kontras quartets, as well as members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Boston Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Vancouver Symphony. As a soloist, she has appeared in masterclasses presented by Joel Smirnoff, Ilya Kaler, Frank Almond, Blair Milton, Kevork Mardirossian, James Buswell, Lucie Robert, Mimi Zweig, Janet Sung, Lauren Roth, Michael Jinsoo Lim, Hal Grossman, Kimberly Fisher, and more.

Megan earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Violin Performance from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. She is a student of Károly Schranz and Harumi Rhodes, the former and current second violinists in the world-renowned Takács quartet. Dr. Healy also holds Master of Music and Artist Diploma degrees from Western Michigan University, where she served as graduate teaching assistant to Professor Renata Artman Knific, as well as a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from the University of Iowa under the tutelage of Dr. Scott Conklin. She has studied viola performance with Professor Igor Fedotov and Dr. Megan Gray.

Program:

Minnie, Op. 65
Stephanie Ann Boyd
I. Aurora
II. Berlin
III. Anthem

MAUD
Jessica Meyer

Something fierce
Hilary Purrington
I. Delicately earnest
II. Agitated, erratic

Esse quam videri
Elisabeth Blair

Sonata for Violin Solo
Lauren Bernofsky
I. Preludio
II. Sadly reflective
III. White-hot