The Cleveland Institute of Music will gather faculty and students at Mixon Hall on Sunday, September 13, at 4 p.m. for a free concert built entirely around music by women, spanning 19th-century figures who wrote against social convention to living composers still shaping the field today. Admission is free, though reservations are required, and the event will also be livestreamed for those who can't make it to East Boulevard.
Titled Insiders: Ralitsa Georgieva & Carolyn Gadiel Warner, Piano, the concert is co-led by pianists Ralitsa Georgieva and Carolyn Gadiel Warner, according to Cleveland.com. Warner brings decades of institutional pedigree to the podium: she has held positions in both the violin and keyboard sections of The Cleveland Orchestra since 1979 and joined the CIM faculty in 1987, according to The Cleveland Orchestra. Georgieva, for her part, earned a Professional Studies diploma from CIM in 2006 and now serves as a staff collaborative pianist at the institute, per the Cleveland Institute of Music.
A Program Bridging Centuries
The repertoire, as detailed by Cleveland.com, features CIM faculty and students performing music the organizers describe as dramatic, intimate and deeply expressive, weaving together historical works and new compositions by living composers. Listed pieces include Clara Schumann's Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17: IV. Allegretto, Fanny Mendelssohn's Das Jahr: IX. September – Am Flusse, Amy Beach's Sonata for Flute and Piano: II. Scherzo, and Dora Pejačević's Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Major, Op. 26: I. Allegro. Contemporary works on the bill include Andrea Casarrubios's SEVEN, Gabriela Montero's Sur le Lac du Bourget, Jennifer Conner's This Moment, Stanislava Stoytcheva's Sereniphoria, and Lilyanne Leccima's Film Noir: I. Shadows in Streetlight.
Clara Schumann wrote her Piano Trio in G minor in 1846 while her husband Robert suffered severe ill health, and the piece remains her only four-movement chamber work and is widely regarded as her masterwork, one that reportedly impressed Felix Mendelssohn for the counterpoint in its finale, according to Sony Classical. Fanny Mendelssohn's 12-movement piano cycle Das Jahr dates to 1841, but its autograph manuscript wasn't acquired by the Berlin State Library until 1997, delaying its publication and premiere recordings by well over a century, per Troubadisc. She was long discouraged by her family from publishing music professionally.
American and Croatian Voices on the Bill
Amy Beach's 1896 Gaelic Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, stands as the first symphony composed and published by an American woman to achieve widespread national and international recognition, according to EarRelevant. Beach was among the first major American composers to succeed without formal European training. Croatian composer Countess Dora Pejačević, meanwhile, wrote her 1917 Symphony in F-sharp minor while working as a paramedic during World War I, a work music scholars recognize as the first modern symphony written by a Croatian composer, per WETA. Pejačević left behind a catalogue of 58 opuses before dying from childbirth complications at age 37.
Among the living composers represented, Andrea Casarrubios composed her cello piece SEVEN in Manhattan in 2020 as a tribute to pandemic frontline workers, closing the work with seven bell-like sounds that echo the 7 p.m. daily window applause heard across New York City during lockdown, according to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The piece was nominated for a 2025 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
Musicians and Venue Details
The concert's performer lineup, per Cleveland.com, includes Ro Alia on soprano, Katherine Bormann and Olga Dubossarskarska Kaler on violin, Lisa Boyko on viola, Si-Yan Darren Li and Eleanor Pompa on cello, Jake McQuaid on flute, Ruben Shonik on vibraphone, and Gabriela Montero and Daria Rabotkina joining Georgieva and Warner on piano. Boyko, a CIM violin instructor at the school today, earned her Bachelor of Music degree from CIM in 1985 and joined The Cleveland Orchestra in 1991, according to the Cleveland Institute of Music; she previously played in the New Orleans, Toronto, and Minnesota symphonies. The pairing of CIM faculty and Cleveland Orchestra musicians in one program underscores how closely intertwined the two institutions remain.
The performance takes place at Mixon Hall, located within the Cleveland Institute of Music at 11021 East Boulevard. Mixon Hall opened in 2007 and seats 235, with an upstage glass wall overlooking the Gilliam Family Music Garden, a design the venue is regionally known for in terms of acoustics and intimacy. Patrons are asked to enter through the Hazel Drive entrance, and parking is available at the venue. Accessibility accommodations can be requested through the box office, which can be reached at [email protected] or 216-707-3163.
Why a Dedicated Program Still Matters
The concert arrives amid data showing how far classical programming still has to go toward gender parity. A June 2024 report by Donne Women in Music, which analyzed 16,327 compositions programmed across 111 global orchestras, found that works by female composers accounted for only 7.5% of scheduled repertoire in the 2023-2024 season, a slight dip from 7.7% two seasons earlier, according to Arts Professional. That backdrop lends weight to faculty- and student-led programs like this one, which pair historical figures who wrote against the constraints of their eras with contemporary composers building new careers today.
Cleveland's classical scene has seen other recent efforts to spotlight underrepresented voices in music, including a rock opera by a CIM alumna that debuted at the Lorain Palace Theatre. The September 13 concert offers a free, low-barrier way for the public to see that broader movement play out on a single Cleveland stage, with reservations required and a livestream available for those who can't attend in person.
