From Classical Singer - Whistling Hens: Reacting to the Landscape

In 2018, soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick and clarinetist Natalie Groom formed a dynamic and original ensemble championing the work of women composers. I caught up with this unique chamber duo shortly after they released their debut album, Reacting to the Landscape. Here the team discusses their journey thus far, future plans, and the value of entrepreneurship in sustaining performance careers.

Meeting in a graduate class at the University of Maryland–College Park, the two musicians discovered a mutual interest in performing music written by women. Groom observes, “Truly, where it started was just that we were friends and we wanted to do something together.” When they began to discuss repertoire possibilities they selected a few pieces already composed for soprano, clarinet, and piano. Preparing and presenting pieces scored for this instrumentation by composers Margaret Garwood and Barbara Harbach (for Piazza-Pick’s DMA lecture recital) led the duo to broaden their intentions from simply performing music by women to actually commissioning women composers to write for their unusual ensemble, soprano and clarinet.

While poring over the question of naming their new partnership, Piazza-Pick stumbled upon a quotation from a biography about musician Nadia Boulanger. In 1918 a New York Times music critic published a denigrating statement directed toward Boulanger’s sister, Lili: “But women composers are at best whistling hens.” This sexist comment sufficiently fueled the fire already lit under this motivated duo. That the ensemble was formed exactly one hundred years after that criticism was published solidified the team’s decision to adopt “Whistling Hens” as its name.

Whistling Hens began its public concertizing in 2019, starting with Collington Retirement Community in Maryland. The duo was pleasantly surprised when Collington’s Women’s Committee offered a financial gift to support their first commission. Piazza-Pick elaborates, “With commissions in particular we were really keen on making sure the world could hear that music beyond just a performance that we did.” Inspired by the potential for bringing new music into the world, the Hens applied and were accepted to a summer residency at Avaloch Farm Music Institute (New Hampshire) in the summer of 2019.

Piazza-Pick describes the duo’s week at Avaloch as “a wonderful place for ensembles, musicians, and composers. When we were first together, we took this week to work on a transcription and one of our first commissions, but also to prepare for educational concerts and work out what we wanted to focus on. We wanted to perform only [music by] women composers. It was [also] about financial sustainability. We’re not the only ones doing this. How do we champion others as well? We are not just women musicians, but we’re all artists, no matter the discipline. As we created the album a few years later, we stayed true to this mission and tried to make sure every aspect of what we chose involved as many women as possible.”

That drive led to Chamber Music America awarding Whistling Hens a Residency Partnership Program Grant in 2020 (made possible with support from CMA through its Residency Endowment Fund) and a 2022 Classical Commissioning Award (made possible by the CMA Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by the Mellon Foundation) in 2022 in partnership with composer Kate Soper, which will yield a new piece in 2023.

Leaning strongly toward recording pieces commissioned for their ensemble, the duo decided to record nine works for their 2022 album—seven by living American composers. All 13 tracks (one piece spans five movements) resulted in world premiere recordings.

When considering a title for the album, the duo agreed on Reacting to the Landscape, based on an excerpt from an interview with Marin Alsop, former Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony and the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. Groom expresses, “The status quo has been at the top of our minds, like Roe vs. Wade being overturned [last] summer or the response to war. [Our work is] a reaction to the landscape.”

Read the full article at csmusic.net.