“In Her Image” is a provocative concert program that explores the spectrum of meanings we find in the experience of being a woman. As there is no universal human experience, so too the lives of women reflect infinite combinations of social, cultural, political, racial, economic, and environmental circumstance. Some pieces in this program highlight the struggle of being a woman in a world still largely governed by patriarchy. Others inspire us to envision women as individuals unencumbered by this constraint. Still others dare us to see the world, the planet itself, or a higher power, as a feminine being: an essential force with which we can commune, in a reality free of hierarchy and oppression. 

These pieces ask questions and claim space: “What happens when a woman takes power?” demands Alexandra Olsavsky’s driving anthem. “Where was I the day I finally found my place?” echoes Sarah Kirkland Snider in a haunting setting of a Nathaniel Bellows poem. Stefania de Kenessey, Accord's celebrated composer in residence, sets provocative lyrics by Annie Finch, in a world premiere drawing on Wiccan energy: “He who hides a woman’s spirit/ loses his own birth within it,” calls one verse. Hear these works along with pieces by Joan Szymko, Zanaida Robles, Libby Larsen, Chen Yi, Katerina Gimon, Eva Ugalde, and others.