Print detail event | Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Facilitated by conductor Andres Franco, this evening program entitled Fierce and Female will explore the unique journeys of several female voices. The program will feature performances by an all-female chamber ensemble of PSO members. The program will also highlight the premiere of the Berlioz Damnation of Faust in anticipation of the PSO performance at Heinz Hall on March 8th and 10th.

Costura Creative founder Eloisa Amezcua and Chatham University literary professor Heather McNaugher will complement the evening with original poetry corresponding to the evening’s theme . Panel discussion, audience Q&A and book signing to follow.

Featured Writers:

photo credit: chris cheney

Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. She earned a BA in English from the University of San Diego, where she was the recipient of the Lindsey J. Cropper Award for Creative Writing in Poetry selected by Ilya Kaminsky. In 2014, she completed the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston, MA. She’s received fellowships & scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Workshop, the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, & the NY State Summer Writers Institute. Amezcua’s debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón, (Shelterbelt Press, 2018). She is the author of three chapbooks: On Not Screaming(Horse Less Press, 2016), Symptoms of Teething, winner of the 2016 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2017), and Mexicamericana(Porkbelly Press, 2017). The founding editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry, Associate Poetry Editor at Honeysuckle Press, & founder of Costura Creative, Eloisa lives in Columbus, OH.

Heather McNaugher teaches literature and writing at her alma mater, Chatham University, where she is also poetry editor of The Fourth River. She is the author of System of Hideouts and two poetry chapbooks, Panic & Joy and Double Life. Her latest book of poems, Second-order Desire, is forthcoming in March. Her poems have most recently appeared in Oyster River Pages, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and The Cossack Review, and her nonfiction in Fourth Genre. She’s lived in Seattle and Brooklyn and received her Ph.D. in English from The State University of New York at Binghamton. A nostalgic librarian, she once worked for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where you will find her on a weekly basis wandering among the novels.

PSO @ COA is a collaboration which explores the creative intersection of music, art, and spoken word at Alphabet City. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in partnership with the City of Asylum, has created a series of three events in the 2018-19 season that will employ and reflect the expertise and experiences of the artists of these two innovative groups. Themes and content have been jointly created to incorporate composers, musicians, poets, writers, and artists from Pittsburgh and around the globe. Hosted by PSO Associate Conductors, each session ties into a theme on a Pittsburgh Symphony BNY Mellon Grand Classical performance and attendees will receive discounts to these concerts.