Press
Melodia Women’s Choir at the New York Philharmonic, on WQXR, in The Wall Street Journal, in Vocal Area Network and much more…
Melodia Women’s Choir On WQXR
Melodia’s commission From the Four Winds by Nina Siniakova has been played many times since Melodia’s world premiere performance in April 2013.
Melodia’s 20th anniversary concert Always Something Sings: Women’s Voices Through the Ages presented music for treble voices spanning twelve centuries.
Melodia Women’s In The New York Philharmonic New World Initiative.
District 3 Councilmember Erik Bottcher presented Melodia with a City Council Proclamation for their 20th anniversary of ‘raising women’s voices and fostering greater harmony in NYC.’
by Teri Duerr, May 9, 2016
Melodia Women’s Choir presents “To Dream a World” in hopes of positive change
by Peri Margolies, May 21, 2021
On the heels of their November virtual concert, “Songs of Love & Hope”, Melodia Women’s Choir makes an enthusiastic return with “To Dream a World,” a free YouTube Premiere event happening Saturday, May 22 at 7:30 PM ET, and Sunday, May 23, at 2 PM ET.
The program features three new virtual choir pieces with piano and string quartet, including Norwegian-American composer Ola Gjeilo’s Days of Beauty, Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run” from Working Girl, and I Dream a World by André J. Thomas. Featured on these recordings are pianist Taisiya Pushkar, violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Clara Kim, violist Stephanie Griffin and cellist Laura Andrade. Click here to keep reading…
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Melodia Women’s Choir shares “Songs of Love & Hope” for a long, cold winter
by Teri Duerr, November 16, 2020
Ƒrom the moment Melodia Women’s Choir hit the New York City scene as a premier women’s choir approaching two decades ago, it has garnered a reputation as a group with both a gorgeous sound and an intrepid spirit. This spirit is the impetus behind the choir’s virtual concert, “Songs of Love & Hope,” a free online event happening Saturday, November 21, 2020, at 7:30 PM ET. Melodia promises to deliver “an evening of music to warm the heart and share feelings of hope” as we all enter what is undoubtedly going to be a long and difficult winter. Click here to keep reading…
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Melodia offers “Incantations”
by Teri Duerr, November 15, 2019
The allure of the supernatural, the mystery of mysticism, the seduction of the spiritual. Our human desire to connect to something beyond what can be known, to extend belief in something larger, to explain the unfathomable is as old as human time. This autumn season, as the days darken, Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, under the direction of Conductor Cynthia Powell, brings audiences “Incantations,” a program that Melodia says, “contemplates life, death and the realm of the spirit.” Click here to keep reading…
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Melodia lifts the veil on Vivaldi’s Gloria
by Matthew Schlect, April 25, 2019
Music always tells a story. Melodia Women’s Choir’s spring 2019 program presents the story of Antonio Vivaldi and the women and girls of the Ospedale della Pietà music conservatory and orphanage in 18th century Venice with “Gloria: Lifting the Veil on Vivaldi’s Masterpiece.” Directed by Christa Scott Reed, with a script by Brooklyn-based poet and writer Pam McAllister, the program will feature New York City actors Lynda Gravatt, Erika Rolfsrud and Katrina Michaels along with an all-female chamber ensemble and the Melodia choir.
“This concert is pure Americana,” promises Melodia artistic director and co-founder Cynthia Powell. “From songs of early Shaker communities in New England and Kentucky to the hills of West Virginia, our music spans a wide swath of our heritage.” Click here to keep reading…
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Melodia celebrates 15 years with “The Harmony of Morning”
by Teri Duerr, April 23, 2018
Songs from five diverse American composers come together for “The Harmony of Morning,” a spring concert celebrating Melodia Women’s Choir of New York City’s fifteenth year of bringing women’s voices to the national choral scene.
“This concert is pure Americana,” promises Melodia artistic director and co-founder Cynthia Powell. “From songs of early Shaker communities in New England and Kentucky to the hills of West Virginia, our music spans a wide swath of our heritage.” Click here to keep reading…
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Melodia Women’s Choir opens 15th season with “Autumn’s Fire”
by Teri Duerr, November 15, 2017
Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC‘s 15th-anniversary season gets underway with “Autumn Fire,” a passionate and poetic program inspired by music of the German Romantic period with works from Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), Johann Kaspar Aiblinger (1769-1867), Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847).
“It’s always a thrill to sleuth about and find great music that is hardly ever performed,” said Melodia Artistic Director Cynthia Powell. “The Harfenmesse (Harp Mass), by Aiblinger is such a piece, and I doubt you will hear it sung anywhere but by Melodia Women’s Choir.” Click here to keep reading…
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Melodia Women’s Choir features Rutter premiere in “Awakening the Spirit”
by Matthew Schlecht, April 15, 2017
Let’s face it, although temperatures were relatively mild, it was a bleak winter for many of us in the United States. But this spring, Melodia Women’s Choir is focused on hope and renewal—and, of course, music. Melodia’s spring 2017 concert, “Awakening the Spirit,” takes place on April 29 and 30 and will feature the U.S. premiere performance of English composer John Rutter’s latest work, Visions, for solo violin, choir and strings; Grace Williams’s The Dancers; and Gustav Holst’s Choral Hymns From the Rig Veda.
“To say that I’m excited about this music would be an understatement,” says Cynthia Powell, Melodia’s founding conductor and artistic director. Click here to keep reading…
Melodia Women’s Choir premieres Hilary Purrington’s Cassandra in an evening celebrating women’s stories heard and unheard
by Teri Duerr, May 9, 2016
Melodia Women’s Choir, led by Artistic Director Cynthia Powell (also the director of the Stonewall Chorale), is excited to introduce composer Hilary Purrington’s Cassandra to choral audiences this May when the choir performs the world premiere piece about the prophetess, princess and priestess Cassandra of Greek mythology. The contemporary choral work for women’s voices, percussion and piano is the fruit of a collaboration between the choir and Purrington, who was awarded Melodia’s 2015 Commission for Women Composers. Click here to keep reading…
Survival and Hope: Melodia Women’s Choir’s Autumn Rhapsody concerts
by Jenny Clarke and Teri Duerr, November 8, 2016
Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC’s “Autumn Rhapsody” concerts on November 19 and 20 highlight a wonderful New York collaboration with the New York Philharmonic and an even more fascinating backstory. The program includes a version of an all-female “Largo” from Antonín Dvořák’s (1841-1904) New World Symphony. Melodia is performing and videotaping it in conjunction with the New York Philharmonic’s New World Initiative. The Philharmonic is celebrating its 175th year by connecting with select members of the music community in New York City. “Largo” from Dvořák’s New World Symphony was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1893. As a way of recognizing the breadth of music-making in New York today, selected groups were asked to participate by posting an online a recording of their performance of “Largo.” Click here to keep reading…
Melodia Women’s Choir offers a little bit of Latin and a whole lot of “¡Alegría! (Joy)”
by Teri Duerr, November 20, 2015
“I’ve loved Latin American music since I was a child,” said Cynthia Powell, Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC’s Artistic Director and Conductor who will lead Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC in “¡Alegría! (Joy!)”, a program devoted entirely to Latin and Latin American-inspired music on November 21 and 22.
Performed entirely in Spanish, the program is anchored by Conrad Susa’s popular Carols and Lullabies, Christmas in the Southwest. Though the pieces for voice, harp and marimba are uniquely of Southwest America, they draw on musical traditions from Puerto Rico to Mexico, Catalonia to Andalusia, and are at turns sweet and lively. Click here to keep reading…
By women, for women: Melodia Women’s Choir competition targets women composers
by Amanda MacBlane, April 7, 2015
Women in classical music have made enormous strides since 1839, when a disenchanted Clara Schumann confided in her diary that “I once thought that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose.”
While it is no longer shocking to see women in the role of commanding soloist or orchestral musician, they are still woefully underrepresented as composers. Click here to keep reading…
Singing Sisters Smashing Success
by Damian Fowler, Summer 2014
Melodia celebrates the Bard’s 450th with “The Poet’s Song”
by Matthew Schlecht, April 2014
Whether or not you accept that the Stratford-upon-Avon Englishman named William Shakespeare was responsible for some particularly good work in the form of plays and sonnets around the turn of the 17th century, Melodia Women’s Choir is ready to make you a believer. In celebration of the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth, Melodia presents “The Poet’s Song,” a spring concert that promises “great poetry set to great music.” Click here to keep reading…
Melodia offers “Visions of Peace”
by Matthew Schlecht, November 19, 2013
For Melodia Women’s Choir, preparations for last year’s mid-November concert program, “Questions About Angels,” were more nerve-wracking than usual. Hurricane Sandy hit the New York and New Jersey on October 29, and thousands lost their homes, the New York City Marathon was cancelled, and many in the area still did not have their electricity back. But both performances were nearly sold out, and those who attended can attest to the healing power of music during times of crisis. Click here to keep reading…
Music for the Eyes and Oars
One Lake, 48 Rowboats, 144 Chorale Singers—What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
By Corinne Ramey, June 25, 2013
On Friday afternoon, the helicopters, birds, car horns and other ambient sounds swirling around the Central Park Lake will have some competition: 144 choral singers, many of them in rowboats. Click here to keep reading…
Melodia Women’s Choir brightens the corners
by Matthew Schlecht for Vocal Area Network April 10, 2013
Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC is closing out its 10th anniversary season this spring with an intriguing celebration, titled “A Breath of Spring.” The choir will mark this fourth month of the year with a world premiere commission, From the Four Winds by Nina Siniakova, which also features an ensemble of four French horns, courtesy of the formidable Genghis Barbie. Click here to keep reading…
Spring 2013
BIG VOICES IN THE BIG APPLE
Jenny Clarke & Cynthia Powell & Melodia
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Women At The Helm 2010
December 17, 2010
Cynthia Powell
Artistic Director, Stonewall Chorale and Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC
As the leader of Stonewall Chorale, the nation’s first LGBT chorus, and the Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, Cynthia Powell has conducted performances for discerning New York audiences at prestigious venues like Merkin Concert Hall, BAM and Symphony Space. Powell also serves as music director and organist of West End Collegiate Church on the Upper West Side. Click here to keep reading…
A musical journey, modern and timeless:
Melodia Women’s Choir presents world premiere alongside beloved classics
Rebecca Jones for Vocal Area Network, November 2010
Later this month, when the singers of Melodia Women’s Choir present the world premiere of an a cappella composition for nine parts, they will be giving voice to the latest chapter in an extraordinarily long musical journey. It began in 1741 with the insomnia of a German count, reached its zenith at the piano of an eccentric Canadian prodigy two centuries later, and, more recently still, found its way to the pages of a gifted North Carolina teenager’s diary. Click here to keep reading…
Wall to Wall Bach – Symphony Space, May 17 2008
Vivienne Schweitzer, May 22, 2008
The phrase “universal composer” is justifiably applied to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. But the universality of Bach’s music is distinct in that many of his works can be effectively performed on different instruments, in a way that Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata can’t. Bach “cannot die,” the pianist and harpsichordist Rosalyn Tureck said in 1961. “An instrument can die, but Bach can never die.” Click here to keep reading
The Record Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria,’ as first intended. Choir to sing work for female voices.
Evelyn Shih, Staff Writer, November 16, 2007
Imagine you are a woman at the Ospedale della Pieta, a hospital and orphanage near Venice in the 18th century. You are either the abandoned daughter of poor parents who could not afford to keep you, or the illegitimate child of a nobleman who could not afford to have your existence tarnish his name…
World premiere of talented New York composer Becca Schack by
Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC opens ears to the world
Cynthia L. Cooper for Vocal Area Network, November 2007
Becca Schack is dressed in cargo pants and sitting on the edge of the stage with her eyes closed as Melodia Women’s Choir of New York City rehearses In My End Is My Beginning. The newly-composed work by Schack will be performed in “Sweet Interlude,” two concerts by Melodia that will be conducted by Cynthia Powell on November 17-18, 2007. Click here to keep reading
Volume 31, Number 4, Summer 2008
The Melodia Women’s Choir, conducted by Cynthia Powell, was chosen to perform at the New York City Department of the Comptroller’s Women of Achievement Awards in March.
This 32 woman choir performed “Shout Sister Shout” at St Peter’s in Manhattan on May 5, 2007 and was featured that morning on News Channel Four – Time Out New York. Click HERE to watch the video.
Azeri Love Song Debuts in New York
Spring 2007
The Melodia Women’s Choir of New York City performed Tofig Guliyev’s soulful love song, “Your Beauty Won’t Last Forever” [Sana Da Galmaz] in a program of song entitled “Shout Sister Shout!” at St. Peters Church, 346 West 20th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenue, in Manhattan on Saturday, May 5, 2007. Sopranist Naila Aziz arranged the piece for choir and was featured as soloist. Both Naila and the choir, as well, performed the song in Azeri. This was the U.S. premiere for this song as performed by an all-women’s choir and as a song performed by English speakers in Azeri. Click here to keep reading…
Melodia Women’s Choir premieres New York composer Allison Sniffin in a concert of Latin American reflections
Cynthia L. Cooper for Vocal Area Network, November 2006
Journeys across time, geography and cultures converge when Melodia Women’s Choir premieres its new commissioned work by composer Allison Sniffin, Óyeme con los ojos (Hear Me with Your Eyes), at Merkin Hall in New York City on November 18, 2006 at 8 PM. Click here to keep reading…
Innovation leads Melodia Women’s Choir to international exchange
Cynthia L. Cooper for Vocal Area Network, August 2005
Assembling fine singers, compiling repertoire, digging into the music are all essential steps on the path to getting an outstanding choral season rolling. But in addition to the usual, Melodia Women’s Choir of New York City is breaking out with a daring leap of innovation, kicking off its third season with an intensive three-day workshop with one of Europe’s leading choral conductors. Click here to keep reading…
Women’s Choral Groups Raise Their Voices
Ann Farmer, Women’s eNews correspondent, May 2004
As the numbers of women’s choral groups increase, many are jettisoning the old pattern of playing second fiddle to mixed-voices choirs. Instead, they’re opting to sing music by and for women.
Just in New York City alone, three new women’s choral groups sprang up in the last year, says Jennifer Clarke, founder and president of Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, a 20-member ensemble that makes its debut performance on May 17 at the landmark St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan. Clarke says women’s choral groups are burgeoning across the United States and “reinvigorating an age-old tradition where people from all walks of life come together to sing and to explore something they love.” Click here to keep reading…
Melodia Women’s Choir raises soprano and alto voices in New York City
Cynthia L. Cooper for Vocal Area Network, January 2004
Sitting as an observer in the audience of a concert during a choral convention in New York City last year, Jennifer Clarke found herself mesmerized by a group of singers that performed exquisitely with soprano and alto voices. A dedicated choral singer since childhood, Clarke appreciated the richness of classical works. But her opportunities to sing music written for treble voices were rare, usually limited to a single selection in a concert or two. And, unfortunately, joining the choral group onstage, Elektra, seemed highly unlikely: the choir is located in western Canada, and Clarke lives in New York. But the vision of a women’s choir soon resulted in Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, a choral group that Clarke founded as a nonprofit organization in late summer 2003 to perform classical music for women’s voices to a high standard of excellence. Click here to keep reading…
Melodia Women's Choir 
