Whistling Hens® was founded by soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick and clarinetist Natalie Groom to perform and commission music by women composers to create a financially and artistically equitable future for women in music. The duo’s name was plucked from a quote by a male music critic who wrote in the New York Times in 1918, “women composers are at best whistling hens.”

 

A duo with “finesse and creative brilliance” (International Alliance for Women in Music Journal) and programming so engaging that “my daughter stopped reading Harry Potter to pay attention,” Whistling Hens creates performance experiences that integrate exceptional music, advocacy of women composers, and music history and education. Since its founding in 2018, Whistling Hens has premiered 29 pieces and commissioned 14 compositions, 10 transcriptions, the Whistling Hens Women Composer Coloring Book, and inspired 17 dedicated works.

 

Since release their debut album Reacting to the Landscape (2022), Whistling Hens has been featured in Classical Singer magazine (2023), and they are the recipients of the International Alliance for Women in Music Programming Award (2024) and the inaugural Iranian Female Composers Association Award (2023). A decorated ensemble, they have been awarded Chamber Music America's esteemed Classical Commissioning Grant (2022) and Residency Partnership Program Grant (2020), which brought a series of interactive, collaborative, and socially conscious programs to seniors at Collington Retirement Community during the pandemic.

 

The duo is founded on the knowledge that women have been historically excluded from composing, performing, publishing, and educational opportunities. Oppositionists have said women were intellectually incapable of composing good music and should focus on home life; discriminatory social norms discouraged or even banned women from composing (forcing some to write under male pseudonyms). Whistling Hens’ work invites listeners to reflect on the impact male privilege has had on traditional music programming and question the status quo of gender inequality in the classical music landscape. The Hens combat centuries of gender inequity in classical music through the advocacy and financial support of women composers. 

 

Educators at heart, Whistling Hens has been a guest ensemble for the Washington National Opera Institute at The Kennedy Center, teaching arts activism and music business skills, and they often serve as guest Ensemble in Residence working with composition, voice, and woodwind students. Whistling Hens was the Darkwater Womxn in Music Festival's Ensemble in Residence in 2021, recording the premieres of the three finalist pieces from the call for scores competition. In 2023, they were in residence at Smith College in Northampton, MA hosted by Kate Soper. In 2024, they were in Residence at Metropolitan State University of Denver hosted by Cherise Leiter. In 2025, they will be in residence at Towson University hosted by Diana Sáez.

 

Whistling Hens has performed and presented at Mississippi Music by Women Festival, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Darkwater Womxn in Music Festival, Boulanger Initiative’s WoCo Fest, Flute New Music Consortium New Music Festival, National Women’s Theatre Festival, International Clarinet Assocation’s ClarinetFest, Sam Houston State University Art Song Festival, American Library Association Conference, District New Music Coalition Conference, and College Music Society International, National, and Mid-Atlantic Conferences.

 

The ensemble has been warmly supported by many “coopies,” as well as by Maryland State Arts Council, North Carolina Arts & Science Council, Awesome Without Borders/The Harnisch Foundation, the M-Cubator Grant for Entrepreneurial Projects, and faculty grants from Queens University of Charlotte, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Georgia College & State University.

 

When Whistling Hens isn’t busy dismantling the patriarchy in the arts, they are watching reruns of The Golden Girls and thinking of fun punchlines to “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Subscribe to the coopie newsletter to stay in the coop.