Opening Remarks
The Sophie Archive is a digital library that contains more than 245 titles by German-language women writing between 1740 and 1923. These texts - which have previously been out of print and difficult to access - include a broad spectrum of genres, including novels, stories, dramas, autobiographies, letters, travel journals, and poetry. The archive is sponsored by the Coalition of Women in German with funding from Brigham Young University’s College of Humanities, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, ORCA, the Women’s Research Institute, the Laycock Center for Collaboration in the Arts, and more.
In 2002 Dr. Ruth Christensen suggested that music be included in the digital database, and each year since then annual recitals of works by Germanic female composers have been held, highlighting works that have generally been unfairly neglected. In many cases, the works’ American premieres have occurred at BYU at these annual "Sophie’s Daughters" recitals. Dr. Christensen and several students from both the School of Music and Department of German and Slavic Languages have located musical scores in libraries and archives in Germany and Austria each summer; then the students participate in composer research, text translation, and preparation for performance. All annual recitals are recorded for inclusion in the digital archive. For more information, please visit HERE, where you may look at programs and listen to audio clips from previous recitals.
Thanks to Dr. Michelle James and to students from the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages for translations of song texts on tonight’s program, and for work on narrations and other research. Thanks to all the performers participating this evening.