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Westport Center for the Arts’ invites you to our 2025-26 Brown Bag Concert Season.Friday, May 15, 2026 at 12 noon.
Playing Her Stories
This program pays homage to many innovative female-identifying composers that marked history at various times. The repertoire presented spans centuries of music, and represents women from diverse cultures.
NAVO Trio combines the virtuosic talents of three internationally recognized musicians with careers that have taken them throughout North America, Central and South America, Europe, and Asia both as soloists and chamber musicians. Friends and collaborators since 2013, oboist Margaret Marco, violinist Véronique Mathieu and pianist Ellen Sommer formed NAVO Trio to research and promote music by female and nonbinary composers. The Trio has recently been awarded a grant from the Barlow Foundation to commission a new work from acclaimed Chinese Canadian composer Alice Ping Yee Ho. Recent highlights include a performance at the International Double Reed Society Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, and the recording of a debut CD featuring the world premieres of compositions by Annie Guzzo, Alice Ho, Alex Shapiro, and Althea Talbot-Howard. The musicians of NAVO Trio are passionate advocates for diversity and innovation in music.
http://navoarts.com/navotrio
Margaret Marco is Professor of Oboe at the University of Kansas School of Music and principal oboist of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. She began her professional career as the principal oboist of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Maracaibo in Venezuela. Since then, her many solo, chamber and orchestral performances have taken her to a variety of prestigious international venues around the world including China where she performed and presented master classes at the venerated Central and China Conservatories in Beijing. She served as Chair of the distinguished IDRS Fernand Gillet-Hugo Fox Oboe Competition from 2009-2017. A strong advocate for new music, Margaret received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and Mu Phi Epsilon to perform and record solo and chamber works by American composers. She can be heard on Naxos Records with the KU Wind Ensemble performing Copland’s Quiet City as solo English hornist and on Navona Records performing works by Ingrid Stölzel and Juliana Hall. Her other recordings include Hidden Gems: Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque; Allegresse: Music for Flute, Oboe, and Piano; and Fresh Ink: New Music for Oboe, Oboe d’amore and English Horn. In 2016 she commissioned A Siege of Herons for oboe d’amore and strings by Forrest Pierce, which she premiered with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra where she also serves as principal oboist. The recipient of a grant from the University of Kansas, she recorded two chamber works by the Ecuadorian composer Luis Humberto Salgado also for Naxos. Her teachers include Ray Still, Grover Schiltz, Mark Weiger and Nancy Ambrose King and she holds degrees from Northwestern University (BM), The University of Iowa (MME), and the University of Illinois (DMA).
Described as a violinist with 'chops to burn, and rock solid musicianship' (The Whole Note, Toronto), Canadian violinist Véronique Mathieu enjoys an exciting career as a soloist, chamber musician, and music educator. An avid contemporary music performer, she has commissioned and premiered numerous works by American, Brazilian, and Canadian composers, and has worked with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Heinz Holliger, and Krzysztof Penderecki. Her debut CD of solo works by Boulez, Donatoni, and Lutoslawski was praised as a display of “outstanding violin playing” and “stunning [performance] with amazing technique”. She has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, Shenyang Symphony Orchestra, Saskatoon Symphony, Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, and the Orquestra Sinfonica de Indaiatuba (Brazil). She recorded for the labels of Radio-Canada, Parma, Centrediscs, Naxos, and Pheromone among others. Véronique Mathieu holds the David L. Kaplan Chair in Music at the University of Saskatchewan where she serves as a Professor of Violin. She previously served on the faculty at State University of New York (SUNY) in Buffalo, and the University of Kansas.
Pianist Ellen R. Sommer is an internationally acclaimed collaborative pianist, chamber musician, and coach. She is an Associate Professor of the Practice at the University of Kansas where she teaches collaborative piano. She performs regularly with faculty, visiting artists, and students. From 1994-2003 Ms. Sommer taught at Missouri Western State University, both as piano and voice faculty. In addition, she serves as pianist/coach for the William Jewell College Vocal Artist Diploma program. She can be heard on numerous professional recordings, including five on Potenza Music and Albany Records. Recent appearances include a chamber recital performance at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture in Malibu, California, with Maria Newman, Scott Hosfeld and instrumentalists from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and a series of concerts and master classes in San Jose, Costa Rica at the Universidad de Costa Rica, and Casa de la musica in Quito, Ecuador. She has a distinguished career as a recital pianist for artists such as Pierre Gennison, Demondrae Thurman, Alex Klein, Carol Jantsch, Misa Mead, and Joyce Castle and collaborated with choral conductor, Simon Carrington of the King’s Singers from 1998-2004.
"At a recent Ruel Joyce Recital, three very talented women brought us an exceptional program that introduced many of us to other women whom we might not have heard of, even though one was born in 1665. The NAVO TRIO played 'Hidden Gems by Women Composers,' wonderful music created by women."
- Doreen Maronde, Artistic Director of the Ruel Joyce Recital Series
"The NAVO Trio just gave a splendid concert at Polsky Theatre. It was so refreshing!"
- John Schaefer
The Brown Bag concerts are presented free (donations welcomed) and held in the sanctuary at Westport Presbyterian Church, 201 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO 64111.
Bring a Lunch, if you wish. Coffee and Cookies provided at a reception following the performance.
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Event Venue
201 Westport Rd, Kansas City, MO, United States, Missouri 64111
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
