TMCO Honors Women At International Women’s Day Concert

The award-winning Texas Medical Center Orchestra, currently in its 20th season, will honor three dynamic women in its March 8, 5 p.m., concert at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Zilkha Hall.

Maestra Libi Lebel and Dr. Kelli Cohen Fein, along with Dr. Mary Ann Reynolds Wilkins, will be celebrated at the concert, which falls on International Women’s Day 2020.

Artistic director Libi Lebel founded TMCO in 2000 as the Doctors Orchestra of Houston. She has a strong reputation in the music world for her ability to communicate through orchestras of all levels. The Juilliard-trained artist is credited with bringing the orchestra to national prominence with the winning of the 2016-’17 American Prize in Orchestral Performance, Community Orchestra Division, with a runner-up finish the following season.

Dr. Kelli Cohen Fein is a radiologist and adjunct professor at the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at UTHealth Medical School. She has served on boards for Harris County Society Board of Ethics, Texas Radiological Association Foundation, Shepherd School of Music, Houston Symphony and The Health Museum. She is a co-founder of mother-daughter nonprofit, Flower Power Gives, with her daughter, Jordan, and Gina Gaston and her daughter, Lauren.

Dr. Mary Ann Reynolds-Wilkins had a successful career in academia as a teacher, principal, associate superintendent and university professor before she entered the property title industry at Stewart Title, where she serves as vice president and senior business development officer. She is an accomplished pianist with three recorded CDs and was co-producer with her husband, Dr. Bob Wilkins, of the musical, “Galveston.”    

The TMCO concert will feature works by women composers Lili Boulanger, Florence B. Price, Jennifer Higdon and Amy Beach. Lulu Liu, a 2019 Ima Hogg Competition semi-finalist and graduate student at the New England Conservatory of Music, will perform Price’s piano “Concerto in One Movement.”

Lili Boulanger was a French composer and first female winner of the Prix de Rome composition prize, but her untimely death at age 24 prevented her from achieving her full artistic potential. “D’un Matin de Printemps” (Of a Spring Morning) follows the methods of early 20th century Impression-ism, such as using harmonic layering, varying musical timbre through orchestration and blurring tonal identity.

Jennifer Higdon’s “blue cathedral” is dedicated to her brother, who died at a young age. The contemporary composer has said that she poured her grief and anger into the 12-minute work, which features an innovative use of percussion instruments as the music soars toward an imagined expanded cathedral ceiling.

Florence B. Price wrote the first symphony by an African-American woman ever performed by a major U. S. symphony orchestra. Although trained classically in the European tradition, Price blended a Southern American blues influence with the rhythms of African-American spirituals, reflecting society of her era. “The Piano Concerto in D minor (1932-34)” is often referred to as the “Concerto in One Movement.”

By the time she was a teenager, Amy Beach was considered to be one of the most talented musical prodigies in the country. Her “Gaelic Symphony (1894)” was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman.

International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Since 1911, the event has been celebrated annually on March 8 and is about unity, celebration, reflection, advocacy and action. 

The Texas Medical Center Orchestra is one of the very few orchestras with its origin in the health professions. Most of the members are health professionals who have a dedication to music that goes beyond their daily occupations.

Tickets are available at tmcorchestra.org/concerts. “Come see why TMCO is just the right medicine!”