Boston Landmarks Orchestra presents “She’s The First,” with Grace Kelly

Boston Landmarks Orchestra (LO) announces “She’s The First,” a concert celebrating the Centennial of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed and protected women’s constitutional right to vote. The concert, comprised entirely of music written by women, will be live streamed for free on the 100th Anniversary of the Amendment’s ratification, August 18, 2020 at 7pm ET.

Boston native, singer-saxophonist-composer Grace Kelly, hosts and performs in the concert conducted by Music Director Christopher Wilkins and guest conductor Katherine Chan.

Featured works include music by Ethel Smyth, a twentieth-century British composer, suffrage activist, and a champion of women’s rights and female musicians. Her “The March of the Women” became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement, and will be conducted by Katherine Chan, Director of Choral Activities at Northeastern University. Also featured are works by living American composers Nkeiru Okoye; Francine Trester, Professor at Berklee College of Music; Boston University Alumna Valerie Coleman; and historically significant works by Boston’s own Amy Beach and New England Conservatory of Music graduate Florence Price.

Boston native and Berklee alumna Grace Kelly will perform her original compositions live with the orchestra in the studio, and will appear as in a special video montage performing at historic sites in Boston. Ms. Kelly will also host the concert. Her International Song Competition award-winning song, “She’s the First” will have its orchestral premiere on this concert, and is the anthem of the non-profit foundation She’s the First, which finds, funds, and supports solutions that not only educate and empower girls but also build up the communities where they are able to flourish. Glamour Magazine calls the song “the girl-power anthem of our dreams.” Her other composition on the program, “Every Road I Walked,” is the winner of an ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award and an International Songwriting Competition Award.

Soprano Synthia Pullum will participate from her home in Japan via a pre-recorded video, and Boston soprano Brianna J. Robinson will also sing pre-recorded selections. Both sopranos will be accompanied by the orchestra playing live.

A closed caption version will be released after the performance. More information and an RSVP link for the streaming concert may be found on the Boston Landmarks Orchestra website: landmarksorchestra.org.

PROGRAM:
Grace Kelly                  Every Road I Walked
Ethel Smyth                 Two Interlinked French Melodies
Ethel Smyth                 The March of the Women
Amy Beach                  Two Browning Songs
Nkeiru Okoye              Excerpts from “The Journey of Phillis Wheatley” *
Nkeiru Okoye              “I am Harriet Tubman”
Florence Price              ‘Calvary’ from Five Folksongs in Counterpoint
Francine Trester          ‘Painter of Landscapes’ from Florence Comes Home
Valerie Coleman          Portraits of Josephine
Grace Kelly                  She’s the First

*commissioned by Boston Landmarks Orchestra in 2003