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Hello and welcome

The San Francisco Symphony is searching for a new musical

director; please write our Symphony President to urge the

symphony to finally hire one of the many available qualified women!

In 2024, it is way beyond time to redress the imbalance.

                  Priscilla B. Geeslin, President, San Francisco Symphony, 201 Van Ness Avenue SF CA 94104

                       Why women should  NOT  be conductors!

                          Scores in three levels  by women composers  - editor Melanie Spanswic

 

Key health  resource: musician-specific exercise

 

Call for readers & blurbs for Volume 3 "Poetical Musings, on

Pianos, Music & Life" - thoughtful, ordinary, any age, non-musicians or amateur or professional pianist-musician folk sought. Choose

Word doc. via email or print copy of paperback via snailmail:  rhapsody.dmb@gmail.com. Published volume will be gifted in appreciation.

 

I'm a dedicated, enthusiastic, amateur senior pianist, poet, feminist, and author of  - "Poetical Musings on Pianos, Music & Life" -

Volume I and  Volume II (both being redistributed fall 2024; email to obtain a copy). Click navigation button "Poems" above or scroll down to read sample poems. You may hear me read "Little Gold Dress" here.

I encourage anyone to take up the study of the piano, listen to more music, and pursue your creative muse - at any age! At exactly the right time in my life I came back to my high school piano and lessons - after retirement following a 58-year gap to pursue a legal and then a fashion business career!

Now I'd like to connect with people, experiences, things - and music - that make my body come alive, my bones shake with laughter, my mind understand, and my soul and creativity take flight. 

I'd also love to connect with those who support the inclusion of women
as artists, music writers, and piano technicians, as well as those who believe that amateurs can be "serious" about their music love!

My hope resides in another day, a new song, and perhaps you --

a new friend to join my email list, submit a Guest Blog, or meet in San Francisco, CA for coffee and to share our music love!

                                Ann Grogan

                        

* * *

 

My heart is often aflame in the pure delight of playing Rhapsody-Arabesque, DMB (The Duchess of Music & Bliss), my rebuilt and refinished Golden Age 1927 Steinway Model M, as I discover new or remembered Romantic era compositions by composers whom I deeply respect and admire.

I hope you enjoy my latest blog: "Honoring Others and New Beginnings" (12.1.24). And a warm thanks to musicologist, piano teacher & writer Frances Wilson for linking to my blog and experience in leaving a piano teacher.

              Where am I now? Home I think,
              And waiting there all these years,
              The tears I never cried from missing...
              What? I do not know. I only know,
              I’ve found it now, lost no more
              But wrapped in shimmering, silver tissue wings,

              Aloft, in flight, rising up, in love,
              In music.

 

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What I'm working on fall 2024

Faure Romance 3.41 - 10.24A. Grogan
00:00 / 03:41
Louise Farrenc - Etude in F Major 9.24A. Grogan
00:00 / 01:33
Schumann/Liszt - Widmung Part A 8.24A. Grogan
00:00 / 03:25
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FOR UPCOMING BAY AREA SMALL-VENUE CONCERTS IN HOMES, CAFES, AND APTS., CHECK GROUPMUSE EVENTS

Upcoming Concerts We Will Host


Sun. Feb. 9 at 2:30 pm
SF Glen Park Branch library
Lisa Liu and vocalist in
a
pre-Valentine's Day FREE
City-wide concert
Check groupmuse.com soon for information; open seating is limited so plan to arrive early!



Concerts we have hosted in the past

AMY AHN, harpist in a FREE concert at the Glen Park public library branch June 16 Sunday

ALEJO CORDERO, bandola guitarist 3.30.24 in a Latin American program.

IAN SCARF, pianist 12.16.23 in a Romantic Era program; just above hear him introduce
"Mallorca" by Albeniz.

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"Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." -- Itzhak Perlman after one of four violin strings broke during a concert -
and he carried on!

"There is a harmony which underlies all endeavor, without which there is no true greatness in art or science.”

                            — Albert Einstein

The secret to living well is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple, and love without measure.– Tibetan Proverb

"Only put off to tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."
--- Pablo Picasso
"Timid people prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
Thomas Jefferson

Emily Dickenson said that possibility is the arena of Poetry, so what might the arena of Paradise be?

"Showing up for one another doesn’t require heroic gestures. It means training ourselves to approach, even when our instinct tells us to withdraw... Err on the side of presence."
 -- Rabbi Sharon Brous,
              founding and senior rabbi of Ikar,             
a Jewish community Los Angeles; author “The Amen Effect.”
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Please if you can, donate to this hopeful Ukrainian professional support group for counseling women victims of the war in Ukraine. Many women have no support after they are raped and abused, sometimes more than once and always lucky if they are not killed during the violence. To support Ukrainian women refugees, consider this organization as well.

Perhaps solace cqn be found in the City of Birmngham Symphony Orchestra's 2022 tribute to Ukrainian composer, in his thrilling"Melody" with the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw orchestra
Heading 5
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"Reflecting on the myriad of emotions and moods that music evokes within us, Ann Grogan’s two-volume collection of poetry will be especially meaningful to music lovers and makers. I particularly enjoyed finding out the specific sources of inspiration for the author, in the instances she chose to share them. Whether it was Lupu’s magnificent tone, Yudina’s intense character, or Yuja’s glittering pianism, it made me reminisce about my own experiences. We often say how music can speak where words fail. What a delightful twist to read about the deepest emotions music evokes within us.
                                                                      
Anna Shelest, pianist; https://www.annashelest.com/
 

"I absolutely loved this second volume of light-hearted poetry about playing the piano in maturity. "Andante" or "Allegro" particularly resonated as I try to live my life at an Andante tempo, while my brain tries to force Allegro upon me! And Grogan captures the state of flow at the piano with her poem "I Heard My Piano Play"

          "I heard her join in with what I played,

          but speak in a different voice,
          fuller and richer than I’d heard to date.
          I completed the phrase, but in a haze,
          wondering what I had heard?"

This is a great collection for older adults who brave the bench, and know what it is to love the piano, the process, the pain and the deepest pleasure."

-                                                                  Gaili Schoen, composer and piano teacher; UpperHandsPiano.com


"A heartfelt journey of rekindled love for the piano, blending playfulness with attentive study and unequivocal permission to pursue one's passions at any age."
-                                                                  Cary Ann Rosko, LMFT, mezzo-soprano

"Ann's words are those of love of music to be sure, but also love of life, abundance, family, and humanity...she understands all that is music: its essence, poignancy, and soul-stirring centrality to life...Her poems will inspire you to learn more, seek

out more, and play more music!"
                                                                   Janine Borchgrevink, piano teacher, artist and architect

"Ann's clever word play lifts the soul taking you on a journey through music filled with excitement and laughter."
                                                                   Lisa Johnson, CMT, Reiki Master, and Chi Nei Tsang practitioner

"Ann's book provides fun facts about the musicians she mentions and stoked my interest to find out more about music. Obviously she has a deep love for her material."

                                                            Chris B., amateur guitarist and composer


"I particularly relate to Ann's hopeful and reflective poem 'Patterns' (from her Advance Readers' Copy of Vol. III 'Poetical Musings') wherein she searches for the ultimate meaning of life's journey and her many competing desires and values. An answer to her quest may not come in the end, but perhaps our lives in our last moment explodes into ultimate meaning, as I, too, hope."     

Jeanette STringham,

Retired fine art photographer and violinist with Main Symphony

and the Berkeley Promenade Orchestra

"I discovered Ann's poem 'Helium' (from her Advance Readers' Copy Vol. III 'Poetical Musings') at the perfect time, and as well resonated with her website blog "The Last Attempt, or The Best?" on the impact and definition of failure and success in life. I agree: why do those two words need to be defined at all? Attaching labels such as these has caused too many too much pain. Ann's encouragement to move forward with what one loves, gives me hope that I can find strength to bypass the judgment of others."
                                                 Sherry Gilette,pianist
Scroll down to read sample poems & reach our Women in Music and blog sections.
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                    Far Beyond an Ornament:
         
   Women  in  Music & Poetry

MARCH - WOMENS' HISTORY MONTH IN THE US! - to Fanny Hensel (Felix Mendelssohn's sister), their father said: "Music will perhaps become [Felix’s] profession, whilst for you it can and must only be an ornament, never the root of your being and doing.” Cecile Chaminade's father would not permit her to attend the Paris Conservatory. Amy Beach's husband thought it inappropriate for women to take to the stage so Beach concentrated on composition. And yet the women prevailed in music as composers and pianists of note! (statement of intent by US Senator Elizabeth Warren!)

I am heartened to have opened my eyes to the substantial world of women In music and poetry (including transwomen). I hope you, too, will join me in promoting the voices of women composers, musicians, feminist musicology scholars, and poets; one or two is never enough representation! Please consider joining me in writing a letter to the music director of your local symphony asking that more compositions by women and women virtuosas be included in their next season, or bringing pieces you find by women to your piano teacher for inclusion in lessons.

Here are my favorite female voices and from pro-feminist musical and poetic male friends and supporters.
Alexandra Enyart She's “a podium talent to watch” (Chicago Classical Review). Multiply-talented transgender conductor who has successfully chartered “Faulty Systems”, an annual program in which activists and artists come together to share stories of underrepresented communities or ideas through music, speech, poetry, dance and other mediums.
 
International Alliance for Women in Music. It represents a diverse spectrum of creative specialization across genres within the music field and include composers, orchestrators, sound ecologists, performers, conductors, interdisciplinary artists, recording engineers, producers, musicologists, music librarians, theorists, writers, publishers, historian, and educators. IAWM, 2712 NE 13th Ave. Portland, OR 97212
 
New book 3.23.24: Women and The Piano: a History in 50 Lives - Reviewed by Andrew Eales.
The poetry of Aemilia Lanyer - the first woman writing in English to produce a substantial volume Salve Deus Rex Judæorum of "sensuous, biblical" poetry designed to be printed and to attract patronage. "Her sole volume of such is also arguably the first genuinely feminist publication in England: all of its dedicatees are women, the poem on the Passion specifically argues the virtues of women as opposed to the vices of men, and Lanyer's own authorial voice is assured and unapologetic." For other female poets in Shakespeare's times, see "Shakespeare's Sisters" by Ramie Targoff, Knopf 2024.
Featured composition by Cecile Chaminade Etude No. 35 "Autumn" played by Anna Shelest, Ukrainian pianist (SLAVA UKRAINI!). Heart-felt interpretation of an incredibly beautiful composition that is one of my all-time favorite lyrical Romantic-era pieces by this well-regarded French composer. Anna's delicate touch, tone, musicality, and love for the composition shines through to feature a stunning, simple melody and a passionate, yet contained, drama. Anna is an advocate for many women composers of this era. Her commitment to bring forward the voices of women in music reflects in Donna Voce (Woman’s Voice), a virtuostic piano program that puts listeners up close and personal with many female composers of the last three centuries. By sharing their compelling life stories and wide ranging oeuvre, Anna makes the case for the power of this music to capture the hearts and minds of today’s listeners. Of special note in support of the courageous people and wonderful musicians past and present of Ukraine, she and her husband Dimitri at their Carnegie hall debut in 2018, introduced us to the Ukrainian composer Alexander Zhuk, in his lyrical Ukrainian Rhapsody,
Featured American piano teacher, pianist, and composer Gaili Schoen (UpperHandsPiano). Gaili prominently features an all-inclusive approach to piano studies for anyone of any age, especially seniors, and has published an amazing compendium of piano pieces and YouTube videos for the beginning and intermediate level pianist. She loves poetry and in a brilliant approach to reducing tension for students, instead of hosting recitals which can be quite daunting for early students, she sponsors periodic tea parties. There incorporates poetry reading and voluntary playing by those attending. She is known for her scores for the films "Festival in Cannes" starring Maximilian Schell, Anouk Aimée, Ron Silver, and Greta Scacchi, and "Déjà Vu," starring Stephen Dillane and Vanessa Redgrave, both directed by Henry Jaglom.
9.15.23 Congratulations to conductor MARIN ALSOP and Donne's efforts to have Alsop entered into the Guiness World Record for being the first female Last Night of the Proms conductor on 7 September 2013. Watch Alsop partner with amazing South Korean ianist Yunchan Lim at the Van Cliburn piano competition 2023 (Kim won first prize) when Kim played his final challenge, the hour-long Third Piano Concerto of Rachmaninoff.
 
Featured British composer, Anna Clyne.  In 'Within Her Arms" Anna reflects on the death of her mother, and expresses a gorgeous melodious line to express deep grief, thus drawing us all in to share this common human experience. She is resident composer with the British Philharmonia Orchestra for 2022-2023.
Featured pianist Sara Buechner performing Rudolph Friml's sweet waltz "Festival of Roses." and selected pieces. Buechner also performs on stage "Of Pigs and Pianos" which debuted in 2021 as her "new autobiographical theater show, detailing my journey through music and life as a transgender woman coming of age in New York City at the end of the 20th century." She has an elegant, delicate touch with relaxed phrasing in music suitable to calm our troubled minds in these politically turbulent times in the US and abroad. Buechner is a multi-award-winning pianist who has been open about being transgender for more than twenty years, and alluded to off-color remarks that she’s heard from agents. “Normally, in polite society, people don’t really say things to your face, but every now and again people let their guard down and you find out what they really think,” she says.
 
Featured sound compilation by Jana Winderen, "Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone," Norwegian artist whose has deep concern about environmental destruction. She accurately records melting ice, cracking glaciers, and other natural sounds. I was compelled to write this poem immediately after listening to this impactful recording of nature. It raises the question of what is "music" and how can music inspire and connect us all to care more about and protect our gorgeous world?
Strange Songs That Belong to Us
Is failing ice a new song,
a music of some style,
a modern tone poem for this age
that comes along once in a while?

In music inheres the concept of movement,
then some say rhythm is the next

element that distinguishes music
in the arts from all the rest.    

The planet moves just like music,
in rhythms that calve and crack,
then rumbles are heard from deep below
as ice melts from the cold it lacks.

The timbre shifts, the shapes transform,
the wind adds to mass cacophony,
cold kettle drums foretell the final act
while the gulls scream in agony.

No longer ignorant, we yet ignore
a certain path to our destruction.
Now a shone light reveals it all,
while ice music foretells our extinction.
Featured composition by Maria Szymanowsky (Polish pianist, contemporary of Chopin) Nocturne in Bb Majorplayed by Natasha Stojanovska, Macedonian pianist and composer.  My favorite interpretation with deft and delicate touch on a superb piano! Her debut CD Album is “Uncommon Voices” exploring music by Eastern European Women Composers with Navona Records, PARMA Recording. "Uncommon Voices, Part II: American Women Composers” is due for release in December, 2023.
Featured composition by Amy Beach "Dreaming Op. 35 No.3" played by Evgenia Nekrasova. A lovely
interpretation with some higher waves and gentle passion expressed in a nice tempo. In her program
"Women Compose" she presents works by Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Elfrida André,
Nadia and Lili Boulanger. Here is my January 2023 recording (Just after learning for the first time to implement
phrasing) of Beach's lilting and interesting Waltz Op 36. No. 3 from The Children's Album.
Featured composition by Professor Jennifer Jolley, "March".
One of the most compelling modern pieces I have heard! Not from my preferred romantic style of music,but I cannot turn away and have listened to it multiple times. Like me, you might hear an obvious musical allegory of two possible futures: one a chilling robotic patriarchy vs. a vibrant human, caring community. Dr. Jolley teaches at the Texas Tech School of Music.
Piano Music She Wrote  Pianists Sandra Mogensen and Erica Sipes decided in 2020 to pursue their shared interest in helping people explore the world of piano music composed by women. They have published two volumes of pieces they arranged, for beginning and early intermediate level pianists. You may hear each piece on YouTube. The also offer ($15) a directory of hundreds of pieces by women composers, clearly a huge labor of love.
Louise Farrenc (French composer and pianist)  From LibertyParkMusic.com  I am learning Op 50 No. 15, the sweetest one-page waltz etude in F# minor!

Donne  Italian for "women." Project of opera singer Gabriella di Laccio whose mission is to make more visible the prodigious contribution of women to music. She reports the astounding and devastating fact that, in October, 2022, almost nine out of ten pieces played by orchestras around the world were composed by Caucasian men. She provides a list of more than 5,000 women composers, and offers program consultation services to music directors who are committed to the inclusion of women, including minority and LGBQT women, to achieve a more just musical world.

Feminine Endings: music, gender, & sexuality  by Dr. Susan McClary (Case Western Reserve University) The seminal 1995 book that brought feminist analysis of musicology throughout history to the present day, into the academy; a must read!

The Future is Female - is a performance available by prolific, talented pianist, writer, and producer Sarah Cahill featuring more than 70 compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Cahill performs regularly in the Bay Area and leans toward modern and experimental music, has a fabulous website and leads a musical radio program on Sunday evenings at 8 - 10 pm live streamed on YouTube.

National Music by Women Festival at the Mississippi University for Women, Founder & Executive Director, 2016–Present. The annual conference brings together a diverse, inclusive group of women composers and performers.  Dr. Julia Mortyakova has a prodigious background in music and leadership in both academia and the community. She currently serves as the Department of Music Chair at MUW and has fostered inclusivity in all aspects of music studies and performance.

Poems
Some of My Favorite Poems
              

 
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         You may hear me read "Little Gold Dress" from Vol. I "Poetical Musings" on Bay Area radio station KALW Public Media / 91.7 FM

The return in US politics to authoritarianism, exclusion, and anti-feminism is so distressing that I am devoting this section to my recent political poetry. I hope you use the considerable power of your voice in the reverse direction to speak up for humanism, feminism, and inclusion.
(Poems are all included in Vol. III in preparation.)

Vol. 1 & Vol. II 
In redistribution fall 2024

Thanks to the U. of Vermont continuing ed dept.for publishing my poem about Huck Gutman, a remarkable poetry professor emeritus!
In the End*


Hope is a useless trope,
so give it up my dear.
There’s more than death by now you know
and more than life to fear.

To live in hope is all too fragile,
too easily dismissed
by “truth” to those we mistakenly think
are idiots in their beliefs,

Or distracted by the cunning kind,
the ones we call the cultists,
they work away while we’re at play
using hope for their death’s grist.

Nor stupid or hypnotized are they
who rail against the “elites”,
but suffering the widening income gap
are deluded as to who’ll meet their needs.

A far better answer and rings more true,
not requiring icing on our cake,
is to do what right and just as we judge,
then true comfort we can take.
_______

*Composed a few days after the election of our Misogynist-
Racist-in-Chief new President No. 47, Nov. 2024



Cause

My anger grows
(does it show?)
“Women’s progress”?
Just a chimera.
Consider Project 2025's misogynism
in clear view, not just a glimmer.

“We have cause to feel deeply”*
(as if we need one).
We have cause to shout and rail
and weep beyond the pale
of day or night, forsake delight
and gird our loins to fight!

No mind to what we really want, just rest...
a waning hope, no time to mope
but time to act - each day and second
do our best to protest the loss of rights we won
... or thought we did.

_______
*Susan Griffin, in “Women and Nature.”



History Declares

Looking back, history declares a need for balance in life,
no medical gurus needed to solve my ills -
Aristotle it seems was more than right!

Psychotherapists can engender insights relieving strife
sometimes helping us avoid too much reliance on pills;
but looking back, history declares a need for balance in life.

In useless search for control we think “black or white”
and don’t see the middle and options can't distill -
Aristotle it seems was more than right!

Pride in our nation we share 'til each think we are right,
then from hubris we become ready to someone’s blood spill;
Looking back, history declares a need for balance in life.

Love of community encourages doing our best with all might
when level-headed we contribute our money or skill,
Aristotle it seems was more than right!

But if we persist in worshiping Mammon and the knife,     we’ll miss the wonders in life and live without skill.        
Looking back, history declares a need for balance in life.
Aristotle it seems was more than right!

Women Must

Women must reframe, transcend the of't-used words of men,
reach beyond the limits of the aggressive masculine trend,

imagine a new world and eschew what most men shout
of the “proper” role for women and men’s fear of losing out,

then ignore what’s called "proper" as articulated in generations past,
their members enslaved not by greed, but failed empathy at last,


call rank misogyny out and ignore mens' calls and becks,
move beyond just anger at men’s feet upon our necks,

and resist images promoted by those of’t-called       “enlightened” men,
the so-called iconoclasts in “brave” examples some defend.


Blake’s endorses Wollstonecraft’s rights for women*** - thus“enlightened” like a brother?
Far from it! Her goal for educating women limited to making women better...  mothers!

And what she rails against? A group of victimized women
and the vanity of such elites - women rewarded by sexist men!

Consider Blake’s sexual “radicalism,”  but more than just the same,
far worse under careful inspection of his continuing patriarchal game

beyond  engraving women always present with a child,
certain “beautys” to behold yet sometimes male-defiled.

Take Blake’s role as Pygmalion to Catherine, his illiterate wife
who pitied and adored him and worked for him all her life,

then consider historical reports how upset she really was
when Blake offered her “support” by lusting after a second “love.”
 
Take Oothune* whose lover sits aside in the agony of self-centeredness,
oblivious to his raped love and attuned to his own interests.

Blake clearly views women as nothing but defiled property to lament,
the original example of her "proper" role, that of eternal enslavement.

The lesson of Blake’s poem? Women must not rely on men,
no hero will soon save us or understand our abject distress

From men, women can’t find solace or comfort in our horror,
too much to expect a human touch from an impervious lover.

Blake ends his tale of terror in the ultimate  faulty vision,
endorsing the oppression of women in his words of perfidious treason -

the raped victim salves her sorrow by turning to her lover,
thinking to procure female victims for his sexual pleasure!

Blake's endorsement of Ghislaine who served Jeffrey’s obscene needs:
Oothune as perverted oppressor seeking female receptacles for evil mens' seed.

Blake? Nothing of a hero, but one who foreshadows Samuel Alito’s sin**
of seeing women exactlythe same - as the property of men.

_______
*"*Oothune is a mythological character exploring her sexuality and responding to her rape and an indifferent lover by returning to him in even more perverted servitude, in “Visions of the Daughters of Albion" by poet and engraver William Blake (1757-1827).
**Supreme Court "Justice" Samuel Alito, author of the disgraceful Dobb's decision ripping away the 50-year-old Constitutional right of women to control their own bodies regarding reproduction..
*** “Vindication of the Rights of Women”.by Mary Wollenstonecraft  1759 - 1797(, She was a friend of Blake who illustrated one of her writings.

Scroll up to read about Women in Music & Poetry and down to visit our blogs.

What I Know About Music and My Piano

I’m so glad you share my love of music and the piano!  I want to celebrate that love and my recent journey back to music via former career paths through law and fashion corsetry. Shortly after a happy retirement in 2020, a creative muse took my hand after 58 years and chose to bring to life the musical sounds within my heart via poetry and returning to play my piano -- and she brought me fully to life again! 

 

"Touch me with care, and the gentlest of sounds!

The piano's the thing that lifts with no bounds."

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I'd love to hear from you!

San Francisco, CA

415.587.3863

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Ann Grogan

Thanks for submitting!

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