The Bach & Beethoven Experience (BBE) teams up with Blaxican poet Leslé Honoré, composer Heidi Joosten, and female vocal trio Artemisia to produce and release this new work, The Pandemic Woman, on International Women’s Day.
The BBE’s all female cast features Leighann Daihl Ragusa (traverso), Brandi Berry Benson (baroque violin), Kiyoe Matsuura (baroque viola), and Kate Shuldiner (viola da gamba). The Artemisia vocal trio features Alexandra Olsavsky, Kaitlin Foley, and Diana Lawrence.
Pandemic Woman pays tribute the billions of women who kept the world running during the COVID-19 response. They “carry the loads of work, of fear, of maintaining homes” (Leslé Honoré). Globally, they made up 70% of the health workforce, lost 55% of jobs due to the pandemic, and were more susceptible to sexual and/or physical violence.
Founded in 2009, the Bach & Beethoven Experience brings artists together to collaborate and make classical music into community by sharing people’s stories through music. Hailed as “thrilling…charming..performed with such grace..joy and sincerity that a watcher and listener had to be won over” (Bloomington Herald Times), the BBE has performed across the U.S. including at Baroque on Beaver Island Festival, Early Music Academy in Ann Arbor, the Green Mill, Martyrs’, 4th Presbyterian downtown, the Dame Myra Hess series, Boston Early Music Festival fringe series, the Beat Hotel in Boston, in residency at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Bloomington Early Music Festival, and more. For more info: bbexperience.org
