Sherry Woods
Favorite Musical Memory
Playing the solo part to Berlioz Harold in Italy while I was 7 months pregnant. I was afraid I might have to name a boy Harold after all that work, but thank goodness the baby was a girl (who grew up and played for a while in the SC Phil before moving to LA to become a studio musician).
Sherry Woods’ works have been performed in South Carolina, North Carolina and West Virginia for the New Music recitals of the Mid-Atlantic meetings of the College Music Society and on recital from New York City to Taiwan. Her song cycle Leaves of the Fall was performed at Winthrop. Adrienne Woods premiered Persephone Dances for cello and orchestra at the Koger Center in Columbia, South Carolina in July of 1997 during the South Carolina Conductor’s Institute. In February of 1996 Sunflower for violin and orchestra was performed by Christopher Woods and the Florence Symphony. Dr. Woods was a finalist and prizewinner in the Denver Women’s Chorus competition with her choral work Sapphic Songs and was one of three winners of the USC Saxophone Quartet Competition, receiving a reading of her Lament for Lost Infants by the Vienna Saxophone Quartet. The Florentine Overture, commissioned by the Florence Symphony for the opening of their 50th season, was premiered in October of 1998.
Wisdom Fanfare, commissioned by the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Philharmonic, was premiered by that orchestra in October of 1999 as one of the series of Millennium Fanfares featuring South Carolina composers and performed by the Florence Symphony during its season and recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic in 2005. Kaleidoscope, a dance suite for violin and piano, was choreographed and performed by the South Carolina Dance Company Piccolo Spoleto in 2000. Kaleidoscope was selected for performance at the Seventh Festival of Women Composers at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in March of 2004. The Masterworks Choir of Florence commissioned and performed in April of 2001 The Holy Band - Mystical Songs on the Poetry of Hafiz, a work for choir and orchestra. Of Rivers and Trees, a song cycle for tenor, piano, violin, viola, cello, and flute was commissioned by the Low Country Heritage Society and premiered at the College of Charleston in November of 2001; it was described as “beautiful and riveting” by the Charleston Post and won the 2005 Miriam Gideon award in the New Music Search by the International Alliance of Women in Music.
Woods was commissioned by the Ciompi Quartet of Duke University to write the string quartet Chambers for performance at the North Carolina Museum of Art for the Sights and Sounds concert series in 2006. It was the winner of the 2008 Theodore Front award in the New Music Search by the International Alliance of Women in Music. Woods’ Ruins for viola and piano was selected for the Composers’ Concert at the College Music Society International Conference in Bangkok, Thailand in July 2007; it was performed by Sherry and Benjamin Woods and was also chosen for performance at the Eighth Festival of Women Composers held at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Walking, for Baritone and String Trio, was selected for the Ninth Festival of Women Composers in March of 2010. Woods’ chamber opera Mara received two concert performances at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City in October of 2017.