Anne-Marie McDermott Plays the Amy Beach Piano Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

This live recording is from the DSO's 2024 Women in Music Symposium and features conductor Anu Tali

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) has recently released a live recording from the opening concert of its 2024 Women in Music Symposium. Conducted by Anu Tali, the concert featured a performance of Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto, starring Bravo! Vail’s artistic director Anne-Marie McDermott as soloist. Also on the program was a work by contemporary Estonian composer Alisson Kruusmaa, her Five Arabesques.

Born in 1867 and based in New England, Amy Beach is widely considered to be the first female composer to come to prominence in the United States. She was also the first American woman to publish and compose a symphony — her Gaelic Symphony of 1894.

Beach was a renowned pianist and featured soloist at the premiere of her Piano Concerto in 1900, where she appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Wilhelm Gericke.

You can hear the performance below:

Following its opening concert, the DSO Women in Music Symposium symposium featured multiple panels and honored legendary conductor JoAnn Falletta, whom The Violin Channel recently sat down with for a full-length interview.

Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott has performed with many leading orchestras and been a long-term member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with whom she performs and tours extensively each season.

Recent engagements include the premiere and recording of a new concerto by Poul Ruders with the Vancouver Symphony, an appearance playing Gershwin with the New York Philharmonic at the Bravo! Vail Festival, and concerto appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Sir Donald Runnicles and with Le Train Bleu.

PC: Matteo Trisolini