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Premieres & Performances

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Upcoming Performances

Green Orange Recital 

For her last semester of having her works performed in the University of Redlands Green Orange Composition Recital. 

Mena will be premiering a chamber ensemble piece she wrote in 2022. To Show Them, first composed as a brass sextet will be premiered as a woodwind sextet at the Spring 2025 Green Orange Recital. Inspired by composer Steve Reich's electronic piece, Come Out. To Show Them is a chaotic and increasingly complicated game of call and response between the ensemble as the melodic line is passed around the group and quickly grows more intricate as the piece continues. 

Jehsica Castle's Senior Recital for BM Clarinet Performance

After commissioning Mena, for a clarinet and trombone piece for her Junior recital in 2023. Jehsica has commissioned Mena once again for her Senior recital to write a clarinet and piano piece. To fulfill a request made during their sophomore year of undergrad. Mena has written Jehsica a sea shanty to be feature in her recital. 

Chelsea Randall

Chelsea Randall is a New York-native pianist, curator, and educator. She is a dedicated advocate of underrepresented and new music and seeks to create fresh dialogues between the old, new, and undiscovered as a performer and collaborator. 

Randall contacted Mena in January 2024 asking to play a solo piano piece she composed during the Covid Pandemic titled "Modern Prelude & Minuet". Mena is very excited to have an old work performed especially since lock down did not allow for a lot of her music back then to be performed. Mena believes it is an honor and an achievement in her growing career to have this happen as well as be a new addition to the American Mavericks project composers database.

*(The American Mavericks Project celebrates seldom-heard, newly discovered and contemporary solo piano music by Black American composers 1900-present through commissions, performances, educational initiatives, and research.)

Past
Performances

77th Annual Feast of Lights: 12.2024

Starting the spring semester of her Junior Year of undergrad, Mena composed a piece for SATB choir and Orchestra for the 2024 production of Feast of Lights. She was inspired to take on this challenge after performing in a former students' work that was premiered two years prior. 

For her Feast of Lights composition Mena composed her own rendition of the 1958 classic Christmas carol The Little Drummer Boy.

View in Projects

Brass Ensemble Concert: 11.2024

The Quintet who premiered the first movement of He Died in the Fog at the University of Redlands during the 2024 Green Orange Concert, performed it again later in November for the Brass Ensemble Concert. 

Green Orange Recital: 11.2024

During the Spring semester of her Junior year of undergrad, Mena wrote a Brass Quintet for the NY-based Festival known as the Mostly Modern Festival. During the Festival the second and third movement was premiered by the chamber ensemble, the Altantic Brass Quintet. Because the first movement did not have a chance to be premiered in New York its first performance was at the University of Redlands at the annual Green Orange Concert directed by the U of R Composition Studio. 

Link to Full Concert Available in Projects

University of Redlands Faculty Recital-- An Evening of Song 09.2024

Almost immediately after the premiere of her soprano voice and piano work, "An Abandoned Woman's Lament". Mena was asked by University of Redlands piano faculty member, Dr. Lara Urrutia if she could program the piece on a recital she was working on for the beginning of the 2024 fall semester with soprano vocalist and opera singer Sonja Krenek.

NATS & Cincinnati Song Initiative-- Let it be New 06.2024

In 2023, Mena was one of 12 composers selected to be a mentee in the Mentor Program hosted by the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). During the Mentoring program the 12 chosen composers were commissioned to compose a piece for voice and piano to be premiered at the Cincinnati Song Initiative's "Let It Be New" digital concert event. ​

"I was so thrilled with the quality of the applicants. Each applicant had a distinct style, but all displayed an innate understanding of how to write for voice, as well as a great imagination for crafting the accompaniment."  -- Lori Laitman

Link to Piece in Music

Link to Full Concert Available in Projects

Mostly Modern Festival: Atlantic Brass Quintet: 06.2024

Mena was extremely excited to return to the Mostly Modern Festival for a second time. She attended the Mostly Modern Festival in the summer of '22 and had an amazing experience. The last summer she attended she wrote a short and sweet Piano Trio for the chamber ensemble The Neave Trio, this year she wrote a multi-movement piece for the Atlantic Brass Quintet. Because of her increasing intrigue in the genres of jazz and blues Mena's piece, He Died in the Fog fully embraces the swung rhythms and laid-back melody lines of the blues and jazz style.

Link to Piece Available in Music & Projects

Green Orange Recital: 04.2024

Friend and SAI sister, Christopher Figueroa asked Mena during the semester of Fall 2023 to compose a wind quintet for them. Though this was an unpaid commission, She took on the project because it had occurred to her that she had not composed a wind quintet before. 

Though it was challenging at first to truly understand how the timbres of the instrumentation blended together, Mena is content with how "Nostradamus" turned out and was impressed by its premiere.  

The Timeline -- Mena Williams' Junior Recital: 03.2024 

Per the requirements of her degree, rather than have a recital to showcase her talents as a composer; Mena's undergraduate junior recital showcased her proficiency and skills as a performer. At the University of Redlands she has been studying classical piano under the guidance of Artist Professor, Louanne Long. Who helped tremendously in creating a program that best represented her.

Mena had been planning since her second year of undergrad to program a recital that honors the African American Female Composers that came before her; this recital focused on the Black Female Composers of the 20th century such as Margaret Bonds, Florence B. Price, Zenobia Powell Perry, and Undine Smith Moore. It was an eye-opening experience to research and locate music from these underrepresented composers and Mena is very excited to be a part of the movement that brings the works of these composers to life after years of being disregarded due to racial and gender-related oppression.

Link to Full Concert Available in Projects

Jehsica Castle & Timothy Ruzon's Junior Recital: 02.2024
Green Orange Recital: 11.2023

Jehsica and Tim are friends and colleagues of Mena who also attend the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music. During their sophomore year of undergrad Jehsica and Tim commissioned Mena to write a piece for them to perform for their joint undergraduate junior recital. "When the Day has Gone" is a piece that beautifully showcases the range of both the Clarinet and the Trombone with a fun jazz-like rhythm and melody. The duet premiered the piece at the Green Orange Concert hosted by the University of Redlands Composition Studio on November 8th 2023 and performed it again at their recital on February 18th 2024.

Link to Piece in Music

Link to Full Concert Available in Projects

Somerset Peede Virtual Recital: 08.2023

Mena met Violist Somerset Peede at the 3rd Season of the Mostly Modern Festival hosted at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York in the summer of 2022. Peede commissioned Mena to write a piece for solo viola for their virtual Graduate Recital. "A Reoccurring Dream" was premiered on Youtube Live on August 15th 2023. Somerset Peede was located in London, England  pursuing her Masters Degree in Viola Performance as a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the time of this premiere. So even though the performance was Digital Only, Mena likes to count this recital in the books as her first international premiere.

Link to Piece in Music

Link to Full Concert Available in Projects

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