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Celebrating Black American Women Composers With the NHSO

In 1912, New Haven resident Helen Eugenia Hagan–the first Black woman to earn a degree from Yale School of Music–took the stage with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) to premiere her Piano Concerto. More than 100 years later, New Haven audiences will once again have the opportunity to experience Helen Hagan’s music live in a concert hall with the New Haven Symphony.

On Friday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent Street, New Haven, music director Alasdair Neale will lead the NHSO in a new orchestration of the first movement of Hagan’s Concerto, with guest soloist Michelle Cann at the piano. Cann will also perform Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement. The program will be rounded out by Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations­–a piece dedicated to the Civil Rights marches in Montgomery, Alabama–and contemporary composer Quinn Mason’s A Joyous Trilogy.

Tickets start at $15. Tickets for youth 17 and under are free with the purchase of an adult ticket. To purchase tickets, visit NewHavenSymphony.org or call (203) 693-1486 Monday-Friday from noon to 5 p.m.