Description
Executive Producers: Evan Flaschen and Patrick Trostle
Women and War and Peace
Yarlung executive producer Patrick Trostle heard pianist Katelyn Bouska perform in Bohemian National Concert Hall at the Czech Center in New York City. This was 2021, as the pandemic was beginning to lessen, after live concerts again became possible. Patrick called me a few days later, saying he had just heard this magnificent concert pianist performing works by women composers displaced or destroyed by 200 years of European wars.
“You need to meet Kate,” Patrick said, “and I think you should record her. Kate not only performs in concert halls around the world, but she’s a lightning-smart academic at Curtis Institute researching and lecturing regularly on Central and Eastern European composers close to her heart.”
Women and War and Peace took shape during concert pianist Katelyn Bouska’s darkest days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic. She missed her family and friends, her students at Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and her live performances in front of living breathing audiences. To use the time productively, Bouska revisited women composers she wanted to explore and realized many of them shared a common theme. They were refugees, or they barely survived, or didn’t survive, and the fact that they were women at the cutting edge of the contemporary music scenes in their various environments made their situations even more difficult. Our earliest composer, Maria Szymanowska, died in the 1830 cholera outbreak instigated by Russia’s invasion of Poland under Tsar Nicholas I. One of our younger composers, Ludmila Yurina, fled her home in Ukraine and found refuge first in the United Kingdom and then Germany after Russia’s invasion in February of 2022 by President Vladimir Putin.
Katelyn Bouska is both American and Czech. She was born in the United States, but spends many months a year performing and lecturing in Prague. Stretching from composers born in the 1700s through the 20th Century, Kate’s repertoire includes music by Caroline Shaw, Maria Szymanowska, Ruth Schoental, Ivana Loudova, Vitezslava Kapralova and Ludmila Yurina.
Caroline Shaw, Gustave Le Gray
Maria Szymanowska, Mazurkas (Kate’s arrangement of Mazurkas 3, 12, 8 and 17)
Maria Szymanowska, Fantaisie in F Major
Ruth Schoental, Fragments from a Woman’s Diary
Ivana Loudova, Prague Imaginations: Five Pieces for Piano
Vitezslava Kapralova, Dubnova preludia
Ludmila Yurina, Shadows and Ghosts
Kate and the Yarlung team give special thanks to the generous people who underwrote this recording. Thank you!
Patrick Trostle
Evan Flaschen
Raulee Marcus
Skip Victor
–Bob Attiyeh, producer
SoundCloud
YouTube
Remy Franck, Luxembourg –
A highly interesting program, heightened further by [Kate’s] sensitive musical choices.
Bob Attiyeh –
Mr. Franck wrote in German, so this is my translation of his conclusion. Thank you Remy and Brava Kate!
–Bob Attiyeh, producer
Note: Remy’s longer statement in Pizzicato can be enjoyed here.