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A Festival of Overlooked Composers on Classical Tulsa

This summer I am dedicating the show to composers you don’t get to hear often, and I am calling is a "Festival of Overlooked Composers" on Classical Tulsa. The series began on June 7 with the Baroque era and moves forward each week, culminating on July 5 with some of my favorite overlooked American composers.

Who are the artists? Of course, there are several women among history’s most overlooked composers

Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen (1745-1818) was born into the Venetian nobility but grew up in an orphanage, where she trained to become a violin virtuoso. We’ll hear one of her Haydn-inspired string quartets on June 14.

Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) only began composing at age 28, following the traumatic suicide of her father. She went on to write no less than 8 symphonies, becoming a major figure on Berlin’s musical scene during the nineteenth century. We’ll hear one of her romantic concertos on June 21.

Dora Peja?evi? (1885-1923) was an iconoclast. The freethinking daughter of a Croatian nobleman, she absorbed the decadent fin-de-siècle style of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss and wrote her own sprawling modernist symphony during World War I. We’ll hear one of her orchestral works on June 28.

Other composers range from now-forgotten celebrities like Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783) to far more obscure figures like Pavel Josef Vejvanovský (c. 1633-1693). A few, like Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), might be household names – but have you ever heard any of Salieri’s music?

More exciting discoveries await you this month during our celebration of overlooked composers on Classical Tulsa. Tune in Fridays at noon on KWTU Classical 88.7! LISTEN LIVE 

Musicologist and Classical Tulsa host Jason Heilman is no stranger to Tulsa’s concert audiences, having been a frequent speaker at concerts by Tulsa Camerata, Chamber Music Tulsa, and other local groups.