Resonate

When we think of women conductors, we tend to think of Marin Alsop and Xian Zhang — and really, that’s about it. But there are quite a few women conducting orchestras in this country. It’s just that, for whatever reason, they’re not on the national radar.

 Diane Wittry, music director and conductor of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania, will premiere her 13-minute orchestral piece, “Mist,” with the Allentown orchestra next weekend.

“Mist” is Wittry’s first major finished work. The Morning Call explained why Wittry recently began composing:

”I didn’t compose because I felt I had nothing to say,” says Wittry from the home in West Orange, N.J., she shares with her husband, artist Rick Peckham. ”There’s such a legacy ahead of people who have had things to say. The last few years I wasn’t finding new music. I was hearing things in my head that I had to put down because no one else was writing the same way.”

It should be interesting to hear what “way” she’s speaking of. I hope that — assuming the piece has something new to offer — the Allentown orchestra and the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra (the Connecticut orchestra Wittry conducts) aren’t the only orchestras to perform the piece.