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March 9, 2018Thursday Musical Club Presents “Songs for Suffrage, Voices for Votes”
In honor of the passage of Women’s Suffrage in New York State in 1917 the Thursday Musical Club will present a concert, “Songs for Suffrage, Voices for Votes”, in the Carl B. Taylor Auditorium at Schenectady County Community College on April 11 at 7 pm.
The Thursday Musical Club is a women’s chorus founded in Schenectady in 1913, directed by Julie Panke and accompanied by Elinore Farnum.
Guest artists will include Totally Pitchin’, the student a cappella chorus at SCCC. A prologue to the concert will be presented by Dawn Standing Woman of Mohawk/Turtle Clan heritage and Eric Marczak, specialist in Native American flutes, illustrating the influence of the Mohawk culture to the suffrage movement.
Two songs from the British suffrage movement by Ethel Smyth will be presented as well as “Petition”, with a text from an 1874 petition to the United States Congress in support of women’s suffrage and set to music by Katie Ballantyne of Ithaca. “And Ain’t I a Woman”, has a text taken from Sojourner Truth’s speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851. “The Spirit of Women”, by Vermont composer Gwyneth Walker, is an updated trilogy of African American spirituals.
A reception following the concert will include representatives from several local women’s organizations: the SCCC student club of the American Association of University Women, the Schenectady County League of Women Voters, Girl Scouts of USA, and YWCA of Northeastern NY. Darlene Lee and Anne Rockwood will be available to discuss their research on two Schenectady women who were active in the suffrage movement. Lee is writing a biography of Harriet Leonard Colburn and Rockwood has researched Izetta Jewel Miller.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for seniors/students and available from TMC members and at the door. SCCC students will be admitted free with student ID.
Contact: Cindy Kelley, Publicity Chairperson
