Glass Ceilings: Music as Social Catalyst for Solo Flutes and Electronics

Flutist Claudia Anderson's solo and electronics program, Glass Ceilings, features five female composers of diverse age, racial and social background, stylistic genres (urban pop, minimalism and postminimalism, jazz, extension of traditional flute sounds in contemporary style fusions), and gender orientation. 

For Glass Ceilings, Anderson commissioned several high-profile women composers and flutists to write pieces for flute(s) solo and electronic media, with its originating theme of gender inequality expanded to embrace the effects of COVID-19 and racial tensions of 2020. The project began in late 2019. During beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, a group of musicians met virtually and a group discussion of inequality evolved: from primarily women’s struggles to a larger conversation that brought in racial tensions and the people in our society who became the most exposed to harm and illness. The resulting works were unavoidably influenced by the pandemic and other critical events that occurred during 2020. Anderson is on the faculty at Grinnell College, Iowa, principal flutist of Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony, and a founding member of the innovative flute duo ZAWA. She is a Miyazawa Artist. Her concert and clinic are made possible through support from Miyazawa Flutes, The Flute Society at Berklee, and the Berklee Woodwind Department.