A Conversation with Laura Colgate about WoCo Fest 2025

The music that will be celebrated at WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift is the work of gender-marginalized composers from the baroque era to newly-composed works. The festival, organized by the Boulanger Initiative (BI), will be May 30–31 at the Mansion at Strathmore and outdoors on the Strathmore campus.  

WoCo Fest is an important component of BI’s work, which also includes advocacy, consulting, scholarship, the development of educational materials. BI also curates the world’s largest database of repertoire by non-living women composers: currently 1,600 composers and over 16,000 works can be found in this growing, interactive resource.  

“Redefining the canon” is a phrase we often hear when we engage with what BI is doing. The mission of the Boulanger Initiative is to “foster inclusivity and representation to expand and enrich the collective understanding of what music is, has been, and can be.”  

Dr. Laura Colgate, who founded BI with Dr. Joy-Leilani Garbutt, remarked that WoCo Fest is “always such a celebration of the beauty that we’re able to bring together with such amazing music that we don’t always get to hear being performed” in a 2023 Classical Score interview with WETA Classical’s John Banther, host and producer of our podcast, Classical Breakdown; they spoke again in March of this year. 

The opening night concert — Friday, May 30, 7:30pm at The Mansion at Strathmore — will feature Chinese dulcimer instrumentalist Chao Tian, violin/viola duo Marcolivia Duo, pianist/scholar/educator Leah Claiborne, sitarist/vocalist/composer Ami Dang, the New Choir of Mt. Vernon, classical guitar/cello duo Boyd Meets Girl, and the Alex Hamburger Quartet.  

The Saturday, May 31 daylong celebration, starting at 2pm at The Mansion, will include PUBLIQuartet, Seraph Brass, Tapestry and Pamela Z, among many others. 

I was glad to speak with Laura Colgate about the Boulanger Initiative and WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift. 

Evan Keely: I think about the important work of the Boulanger Initiative as insistently raising the question: Who is classical music? An answer to that begins with the recognition that the exclusion of women and gender-marginalized composers has often been intentional, and that this is an ongoing problem; you yourself have articulated “that simultaneous feeling of being enraged and frustrated, and being inspired by so much incredible music that we just don’t know” when we consider the huge body of work that has been ignored, either through deliberate malice or just a lack of awareness. But of course, one of the most fascinating questions inherent in all this is, “What is classical music?” WoCo Fest over the years appears to be engaging both of these questions implicitly and explicitly. It’s trendy nowadays to gush about an artist or ensemble being “genre-defying,” but I admit I love encountering music (or any art) that resists easy categorization; labeling can be both illuminating and/or stifling, depending on how we use it. (Full disclosure: I’ve never been especially enthusiastic about this term, “classical music,” but I don’t have profound wisdom to share about how we might talk about it in a more interesting or constructive way.) How do you think about WoCo Fest (and WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift in particular) with regard to the question of what classical music is? 

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Laura Colgate: I am equally unenthusiastic about the label “classical music” because it leaves out so much. Like the label, the field of classical music has historically tended to stay inside the lines of a strict box, which repeats itself over and over, and is therefore not capturing interest or enthusiasm of younger generations. WoCo Fest doesn’t just expand and build on the restrictions of typical classical music, it completely reinvents the field and any expectations. When you can witness a sitarist, Chinese dulcimer, jazz quartet, and choir in the same concert (like you can at the opening night concert of WoCo Fest on May 30th!), you start to see all the boundaries disappear, and the similarities and threads become super clear. Another great example is PUBLIQuartet, a classical string quartet performing the opening show on May 31st of WoCo Fest, which will improvise and perform music by Julia Perry, Rhiannon Giddens, Tina Turner, and more, blurring the lines of what one would expect from a traditional string quartet.  

EK: Perhaps this is just a reflection of my striving daily to use language thoughtfully on the radio (and in blogs, and on podcasts), but I’m attentive to the words linked with the festival over the years: 2021: Revelry; 2022: Amaze; 2023: Awaken; 2024: Evolve; 2025: Uplift. A noun in 2021, and then a string of imperative verbs thereafter. WoCo Fest is telling us — I’d say, in an inviting and enticing way — but telling us to do something. To me, this communicates energy and vitality; it conveys a sense of urgency. There’s an imperative to not only look at the world in a new way and to think differently, but to take action. I have not the slightest doubt that you and everyone involved want attendees of WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift to experience joy and wonder, but can you tell us more about what you want those who partake of it to do? “Uplift” — lift up whom? what? how? why? 

LC: Yes! Choosing a theme for the festival each year is always a really fun challenge. It not only gives a sense of what you can expect to hear at the festival each year, but what you can expect to feel. And yes — what you can expect to do! This goes for the audience and attendees, the artists, the composers attending the festival, and even the staff who make it happen. This year’s festival is all about uplifting each other and creating joy and community.  

EK: You have often remarked, such as in your Classical Score conversation last year with Nicole Lacroix, that “awareness around the lack of education, programming, and support for gender marginalized composers has certainly increased over the last few years, which makes me wonder why we’re not seeing more progress,” and you rightly point out that “major US orchestras are still only dedicating around 2% of their annual concert programs to music by non-living women composers.” In your conversation in March with John Banther on Classical Breakdown, you remarked that “classical music is further behind in gender equity than almost any other industry.” What do you see as the most formidable ongoing obstacles to changing this? Conversely, what makes you most hopeful in 2025 — and beyond? 

LC: To me there are two really big obstacles. The first is curiosity, which I talk a lot about. The other is trust and belief. The people behind programming decisions for orchestras have to have trust in their audiences and in the people in their communities and believe they want to come hear good music, believe their orchestras are good enough to come even if they might not be familiar with the composer or work on a specific program. We have to instill a sense of curiosity in ourselves, in those around us, and in the next generation to want to hear music we’ve never heard before. I believe that enough people love music, and love attending live concerts, and will buy a ticket without needing to already know the music being performed.  

The thing that makes me most hopeful is us. Boulanger Initiative’s people: our team, our board, our followers, our audiences, our clients, and our entire community. There are so many people who love what we stand for and believe in our mission and want to be a part of it.  

EK: This year’s WoCo Fest is a WorldPride Partner Event. Is this the first time BI has partnered with WorldPride? How did this collaboration come about? 

LC: It is! WoCo Fest overlaps with WorldPride this year taking place in DC, and we have multiple free outdoor shows on May 31st. DC-based drag queen Tara Hoot and District5 will perform The QUEENTET Project, and we have free shows by the National LGBTQIA+ Flute Choir (with thirty nine flutes!) and the International Pride Orchestral Brass Ensemble, some of whom will be performing in drag. We will also have food trucks and drinks for sale and I know the outdoor events are going to be loads of fun.  

EK: If I understand the history correctly, we are coming up on the Boulanger Initiative’s seventh birthday this summer. What are you proudest of so far? What’s been surprising, unexpected? What do you want us to know about future goals for BI? 

LC: I’m proud of how much we’ve accomplished in just seven years, and we have so programs that are making a difference. I’m blown away by the fact that our database has been used in 70 countries across the world. I’m so proud of the books we’ve published and put out in the world. I’m so excited for our first ever online course happening in June. I could go on and on, there’s just so much to be proud of. We still have so far to go and so much to do. We’re making such an impact on the music world every single day, and the single thing that can help us get there faster is financial support. Anyone can make a difference by making a donation, and we’re grateful for every single dollar.  

EK: I want to sincerely thank you and everyone involved with the Boulanger Initiative for everything you’re doing to uplift women and gender-marginalized composers, and for encouraging all of us, as you have often said, to “be curious.”