A local musician and an English professor will perform the tradition of a concert full of women’s music will take place on Friday.

Elaine Fine, a Charleston resident and a violinist, and John David Moore, an English professor and a pianist, will perform compositions by women composers during “Concert of Women’s Music” at 7:30 in the Recital Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

Jeannie Ludlow, an English professor and the director of women’s studies, said this concert has been a part of women’s history month for years.

“Every year they pick out music that was written by women and prepare a little concert for Women’s history and awareness month and we really appreciate it,” Ludlow said. 

Fine said they will be performing pieces from women of the 20th century.

Fine and Moore will perform “Violin Sonata” by Amy Beach, “Skye Boat Fantasie for Violin, Viola, and Piano” by Fine, Luise Adolpha LeBeau’s “Three Pieces for Viola and Piano, Opus 26,” Marion Bauer’s “Viola Sonata, Opus 22” and Rebecca Clarke’s “Dumka for Violin, Viola, and Piano.”

Ludlow said she is excited to hear this music.

“The thing I look forward to personally with this concert is that they do a lot of 20th century music, and I love 20th century art music,” Ludlow said. 

Fine said this year will be a little different than previous years.

“This year, we have a third person performing with us, usually it is me and John David, but this year I will be playing the viola and we will have a guest violinist,” Fine said.

Violinist Sharilyn Spicknall will also be performing in the concert alongside Fine and Moore.

This is also the first year the concert will take place in Doudna, Fine said. 

Fine said all the music they perform is from women composers because most people do not know many of those people.

“If you were to ask many people who were women composers of important music, it would be difficult for the to come up with more than one or two,” Fine said. “(Moore) and I have been spending several years finding music of really high quality and preparing it for these programs.”

Ludlow said this is a good example of women in history.

“I think it is fabulous because women composers typically get forgotten,” Ludlow said. “Even music majors have a hard time remembering three or four women composers, yet they can rattle off dozens of male composers across history.”

Ludlow said audience members will get educated while listening to the music.

“(Fine and Moore) include in their program biographical information about who they are playing,” Ludlow said. “So you get a sense of their lives, who they were, how we know about them, and I think that is very important.”

Fine said she hopes audience find something new that they like.

 “We look forward to introducing music to people that they’ve never heard before,” Fine said. “For many, many, many years, people assumed that all music was written by men and that was disproven time again. 

Fine said she hopes to teach audience members about these women.

“But I most enjoy about playing these concerts is opening the eyes and the ears of people in the audience to understand time and again the women write music as well as men write music,” Fine said.

Ludlow agreed.

“Every year, their concert fills a gap in our knowledge about women in music,” Ludlow said.

Fine said audience members will like the concert because it is something new.

“They’ll hear music they’ve never heard before, and they’ll learn that the music world is a lot larger than they’ve been led to believe,” Fine said. “And they’ll also learn that just because they haven’t heard of a composer do not mean that that composer’s music is not something special, something note worthy.”

 Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.