Open Rehearsal: Suite for Sweethearts

Next date: Wednesday, October 01, 2025 | 08:00 PM to 10:00 PM

Join for an open rehearsal before the world premiere on Friday, October 3. This is a behind-the-scenes experience, and the program or pieces may not be played in their entirety and the conductor may stop and start the music.

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At the height of the Swing Era, a racially integrated women’s big band called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm attracted the finest women jazz instrumentalists and toured to national acclaim in the 1930s and 40s. From 1942 through 1949, the band’s home base was in Arlington’s historically African American Green Valley neighborhood. Inspired by the Sweethearts, Amy K. Bormet has composed a suite of new music for her large ensemble, Bitter Sweethearts.

 

Amy K. Bormet is a performer, composer, and director who tours the US, Europe, South America, and Asia. Amy was an artist-in-residence for Betty Carter Jazz Ahead, and a Mary Lou Williams Emerging Artist at the John F. Kennedy Center. An advocate for women musicians, Amy is the founder and artistic director of the Washington Women in Jazz Festival. Her 17-piece jazz orchestra, Celestial Spang-A-Lang, co-led with Baritone Saxophonist Dr. Leigh Pilzer, premiered at the Atlas Performing Arts Center for the Washington Women in Jazz Festival in March 2023. A proud graduate of DC’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Howard University, Amy is the chair of the alumni board at University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance where she studied with Geri Allen.

This event is a part of a series. Two contemporary women musicians, Munit Mesfin and Amy K. Bormet, uplift the legacies of Arlington legendary women musicians Roberta Flack and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm with a weekend showcase at Theatre on the Run on October 3-5, 2025.

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