WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift
All Day At The Mansion
Sat, May 31 beginning at 2pm at the Mansion at Strathmore
Fulfill your wanderlust with a day of musical discovery and community connection at the second day of WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift at The Mansion at Strathmore and the Strathmore Lawn! In a time when we need it most, come together to uplift artists and one another through vibrant concerts, live composer workshops, and inspiring discussions with musicians, composers, and scholars. Experience uplifting music’s evolution from medieval renaissance to experimental electronics.
Be enthralled by performances from PUBLIQuartet, Seraph Brass, and Tapestry in the Mansion’s music room, classical guitar/cello duo Boyd Meets Girl during live composer workshops, and an electrifying festival finale by composer/performer and media artist Pamela Z. As an official Partner Event of WorldPride 2025, enjoy free outdoor performances by The QUEENTET Project featuring chamber ensemble District5 & DC-based drag artist Tara Hoot, The National LGBTQIA+ Flute Choir, and the International Pride Orchestra Brass Ensemble.
Your pay-what-you-can ticket includes entry to the Mansion, access to community booths, composer workshops, educational programs with the BI team, and more! Food trucks will be on site and don’t forget to bring your blanket or lawn chairs for the outdoor performances. Each performance in the Mansion’s music room is ticketed separately. Outdoor performances are free and open to all—no ticket or registration required.
Scroll down to learn more about each event.
The Music Room at The Mansion
Each performance in the Mansion’s music room is ticketed separately for $30 a piece, or you can purchase a discounted all day pass for $100 to attend all four music room performances.
2pm - PUBLIQuartet: FREEDOM AND FAITH
Applauded by The Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music,” and by The New Yorker as “independent-minded,” multi-GRAMMY®-nominated PUBLIQuartet is an improvising string quartet whose repertoire blends genres and highlights American multiculturalism.
4pm - Seraph Brass
In its 11th season, Seraph Brass was founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden with a mission to showcase the excellence of women brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming. Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, the group has been praised for its “beautiful sounds" (American Record Guide), "fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura).
6pm - Tapestry: Women's Voices Then and Now
Tapestry was founded to create bold, conceptual programs that travel through time, weaving together a diverse range of genres and colors.
Women’s Voices Then and Now reaches across centuries bringing together medieval cantigas, songs of rebellious nuns, a troubadour song by Beatrice de Dia, salon music of Pauline Viardot, a tango by Jocelyn Pook and more!
8pm - Pamela Z
Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working primarily with voice, live electronics, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live looping, she processes her voice to create complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures.
Photo by Ian Winters
The Gazebo at The Mansion
Food trucks will be on site and don’t forget to bring your blanket or lawn chairs for the outdoor performances. Outdoor performances are free and open to all—no ticket or registration required.
3:10pm - District5 and Tara Hoot: THE QUEENTET PROJECT
"THE QUEENTET PROJECT" is a collaborative effort between Tara Hoot, an award-winning DC-based drag queen, and District5, a wind quintet committed to promoting new works. Their unique show highlights LGBTQIA+ voices and creates a novel exploration of unconventional storytelling through the melding of drag and classical music. Today’s performance includes selected music and banned book readings from the full show.
5:10pm - National LGBTQIA+ Flute Choir
The National LGBTQIA+ Flute Choir provides a celebratory space for LGBTQIA+ flutists and allies to come together, perform works composed or arranged by members of our community, and commission new works for flute choir by LGBTQIA+ composers.
7:10pm - International Pride Orchestra Brass Ensemble
Founded in 2022, the International Pride Orchestra is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that brings together LGBTQIA+ musicians from around the world to present concerts, celebrate community, and raise funds for LGBTQIA+ causes. The International Pride Orchestra unites music making with global advocacy. They are a volunteer orchestra with a charitable mission to raise awareness and funds for local, national, and international LGBTQIA+ programs.
2nd Floor Invitational Gallery at The Mansion
Your pay-what-you-can ticket includes entry to the Mansion and access to events in the 2nd Floor Invitational Gallery
Live Composer Workshops with Boyd Meets Girl from 3pm - 7:45pm
WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift features our Composer Workshops which are process-based, exploratory music workshops offering women and gender-marginalized composers the extraordinary opportunity to workshop their ideas in real time in front of a live audience and hear their works-in-progress performed by classical guitar/cello duo Boyd Meets Girl. These workshops are a safe space for composers to try out ideas which may or may not work and to take artistic risks that could lead them in an exciting new direction. It's also a thrilling opportunity for the audience to watch the creative process, so often behind-the-scenes, at work in real time.
2nd Floor Gallery II at The Mansion
Your pay-what-you-can ticket includes entry to the Mansion and access to events in the 2nd Floor Gallery II.
Interactive Sessions
Elegy
3:10pm
Join Simone Baron for a performance honoring two great composers that have recently left us, Sofia Gubaidulina and Susan Alcorn.
Graphic Score Workshop
5:10pm
How can we unlock and demystify the role of the composer? Graphic notation can empower anyone to connect to their inner creativity. Starting with a simple line drawing, we will work through the compositional process, ending with the thrilling experience of performing a piece written by YOU! Participants will use paper and coloring materials and be guided to represent an improvised sound/gesture in two dimensional form, which will then be workshopped and performed. A discussion will also be held to frame the workshop, asking listeners to consider the question of ownership in composition, their relationships to their own bodies, trees, dreams, sources of creativity, and memories. All ages are welcome, we will provide materials that you can create your scores with, and you are welcome to bring a musical instrument!
Creating Music as a Tool for Change
7:10pm
This session will go in-depth into why creating original music is important and will include a hands-on activity that will help unlock their inner composer. We’ll ask questions like “What is a composer?” and “What stories and cultures need to be represented today?” Together, we will explore which genres and instruments best represent these issues and which composition type is most suitable (written, aural, etc). Together, we will take a journey through transformative music throughout history with discussions of why this music was important and how it affected change and conclude with writing some compositions of your own!
Boulanger Initiative and WoCo Fest 2025: Uplift is supported in part by funding from Strathmore, the Montgomery County Government and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Maryland State Arts Council, The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and The Alice M. Ditson Fund.
