{"id":85276,"date":"2025-03-06T11:25:54","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T17:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=85276"},"modified":"2025-03-06T11:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T17:25:55","slug":"fhsus-department-of-music-vocalizes-support-for-female-composers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=85276","title":{"rendered":"FHSU\u2019s Department of Music vocalizes support for female composers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By ADIA REYNOLDS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women have fought tooth and nail for their place in the arts industry as performers and creators. To honor that history of struggle, music majors from Fort Hays State University performed pieces written by female composers at Breathe Coffee House on Saturday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event was intended to celebrate and raise awareness for women in the field of music composition as an aspect of Women\u2019s History Month. The event was led by Ryan Will, a student within the department and intern at Breathe Coffee House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of my current projects is introducing campaigns to the coffee house,\u201d Will said. \u201cThis includes planning, coordinating, facilitating and hosting these events for the campaign, such as the music night that took place last weekend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will also performed in a duet with Jentre Smith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was incredibly proud of the performances given throughout the night,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe performed works by women composers to highlight the powerful, intricate and challenging works of women composers that are too often overlooked because of systemic inequities throughout history. Since the event, I have heard several people share with me the profound impact these performances had on them. The music and performances were nothing short of transformational.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two vocalists, Addyson Brown and Rebecca Cole, pulled back the curtain to reveal their inspirations and influences from women composers. Those involved described how they were pleasantly surprised by the event turnout and the welcome reception the performers received.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attendees were treated to students who selected musical compositions written by women composers, performed them, then discussed how the piece has influenced them or the musical world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWomen in music have always struggled,\u201d Brown said. \u201cMost women composers couldn’t publish their works on their own accord. They either went through their father or husband and still today, when most think of composers, it\u2019s men like Mozart or John Williams (the composer for movie soundtracks like Jaws<\/em>).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cole dove into her song choice and inspiration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe song I performed was “Flowers” from the musical \u2018<\/em>Hadestown,\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cI was portraying Eurydice, who has just sold her soul to the Underworld and Hades himself in this scene. This reflects Women’s History Month because, in this song, she begins to forget who she is as a person because of the influence Hades is having on her. It almost describes the difficulty many women go through when they are in abusive relationships or situations dominated by men. They are unable to escape and ultimately feel stuck in darkness.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cole described how the composer Ana\u00efs Mitchell, creator of the Broadway musical \u201cHadestown,\u201d inspired her and her choice in the performance piece. In this way, Cole\u2019s performance was equal parts a tribute to her inspirations and a retelling of women-centric Greek myths. Cole\u2019s performance of \u201cFlowers\u201d described tragedy, but a tragedy common to women told through a woman\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown encourages people from all backgrounds to support women in the arts, not just those directly involved in the music industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs our society moves towards having equality for all,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is important that we recognise these minorities and celebrate them and all the hard work. I encourage others that if they find a female composer they enjoy, to raise support and awareness to help not only them but their song gain the recognition they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayley Shoemaker \u2014 assistant professor of applied voice in the FHSU Department of Music \u2014 said the International Women’s Day Recital is a way to directly get involved and support women in the arts. The Women\u2019s Day Recital takes place at 7:30 p.m. March 8 in Sunset Lounge of the Memorial Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe recital will include songs and duets written by female composers performed by FHSU Music and Theatre students,\u201d Shoemaker said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ADIA REYNOLDS Tiger Media Network Women have fought tooth and nail for their place in the arts industry as performers and creators. To honor… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3397,3398,3400,3401,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-fhsu-music-arts-entertainment","category-fhsu-theatre","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/WomenComposersImpact.jpg?fit=2341%2C1014","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85278,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85276\/revisions\/85278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}