Music Graduate Student to Present at International Women's Day Conference in London

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Performer's certificate student in the Department of Music, Manchusa Loungsangroong was invited to present her research at the International Women and/in Musical Leadership Conference in London on International's Women Day in March. Her presentation, titled "American Pioneer Clarinetists and Conductors of All-Woman Orchestras," features stories of two early American women clarinetists who held positions in orchestras during the early 20th century — a time when women musicians were still not allowed to be in the same orchestra as men.

In response to sex discrimination in many orchestras at the time, Lillian Poenisch (ca. 1898-1908, Kansas) and Jeannette Scheerer (1905, Iowa) formed their own All-Women orchestras to provide career opportunities to numerous women musicians. These trailblazing women made clarinet playing and conducting acceptable politically, socially, and economically — opening the door of musical opportunity for women of later generations. Loungsangroong's research will also be published as an article in The Clarinet journal of the International Clarinet Association in the March issue this year.

A native of Thailand, Loungsangroong recently earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Clarinet Performance from the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she served as a graduate teaching assistant and administrative assistant. There, her responsibilities included teaching Woodwind Techniques course and assisting the clarinet professor Caroline Hartig. With OSU Wind Symphony, she has performed at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and recorded a CD for Naxos Music Library. Loungsangroong has been performing with Opera Fayetteville since 2012. She had performed in Cividale del Friuli and Camerino, Italy, where she studied with Nicola Bulfone and Sergio Bosi.

Formerly, she was an associate principal clarinet of the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra. She performed at Conductors Symposium Chamber Winds and Black Composers Symposium in Fayetteville in 2012-13. She has appeared at many major clarinet conventions including International Clarinet Association ClarinetFest, International Clarinet Association Mid-America Festival, Texas Clarinet Colloquium, Arkansas Clarinet Day, and Clarinet Symposium in Oklahoma, where she participated in master classes with Larry Guy, Richard Hawkins, Robert Dilutis, and Guy Yehuda. Her principal teachers include Caroline Hartig, Nophachai Cholthitchanta, and Sarah Mickey.