Peoria Symphony Orchestra Music Director George Stelluto and Executive Director Susan Hoffman hold a proclamation by the City of Peoria recognizing the orchestra for its Everywoman: A Friedan Centennial Memoire commission.
In November, the Peoria Symphony Orchestra presented HerStory: A Musical Tribute to Betty Friedan, a concert marking the 100th birthday of Betty Friedan, born in 1921 in Peoria, Illinois. Friedan was best known as author of The Feminine Mystique and co-founder of the National Organization for Women. The centerpiece of HerStory was the world premiere of PSO composer in residence Stephanie Ann Boyd’s Everywoman: A Friedan Centennial Memoire, which tracked Friedan’s “personal triumphs and tribulations … from her college-age musings to the world-changing victories in her call for equality.” Everywoman was narrated by Deborah F. Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; events leading up to the concert included a screening of 28 Minutes with Betty Friedan, a 1999 interview in which Friedan discussed her upbringing in Peoria, and a “Lunch and Learn” conversation with Boyd, Music Director George Stelluto, and violinist Sirena Huang, soloist in Boyd’s Sybil violin concerto on the same program. To cap it all off, Peoria Mayor Rita Ali and the City Council issued a proclamation recognizing the orchestra’s Friedan commission.
