Whistling Hens: Big Crass Monster Album Review

When soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick and clarinettist Natalie Groom set out to record their new album, Big Crass Monster, they never expected to compete with lawnmowers. “Even in a state-of-the-art concert hall at UMBC, the sound of three or four mowers outside forced us to pause multiple times,” they recall, laughing. The story captures the essence of their collaboration, lively, unpredictable, and full of humour. It also illustrates the spirit of Whistling Hens, the ensemble they founded in 2018, with a clear mission: to perform and commission music by women composers and reclaim a history that has been too often overlooked.

The ensemble’s name, inspired by a century-old insult, showcases their playful defiance. A 1918 New York Times critic referred to composer Lili Boulanger as “at best whistling hens.” Instead of shying away from the slur, Piazza-Pick embraced it. “I picked up the phone and told Natalie, ‘We have our name,’” she recalls. One hundred years later, Whistling Hens was established, a soprano and clarinet duo dedicated to transforming the classical music scene.

Jennifer Piazza-Pick

Piazza-Pick, now the Director of Music and an Assistant Professor of Music (Voice) at Queens University of Charlotte, and Groom, a clarinet professor at UMBC and Towson University, met as doctoral students and quickly discovered their shared passion for collaboration, curiosity, and women composers. Their upcoming album, Big Crass Monster, embodies that spirit. Its title comes from a critic’s famous description of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 as a “big crass monster,” while the cover art, a giant blue chicken, is inspired by Katharina Fritsch’s Hahn/Cock, a fifteen-foot sculpture atop the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. “We wanted something bold, funny, and a little irreverent,” Groom says. “Classical music is often far too serious, and this album reflects that.”

The recording features works by four living women composers, Jennifer Stevenson, Melissa Dunphy, Jenni Brandon, and Cherise Leiter. Each piece was selected for its musical richness and the story behind its creation, providing listeners with an engaging and immersive experience.

Jennifer Stevenson: Musical Invective – I. Beethoven

Natalie Groom

The album opens with Stevenson’s Musical Invective, a comical five-movement piece inspired by the idea that even revered composers received harsh reviews. Each movement focuses on a famous composer, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, Lili Boulanger, and George Gershwin. The first track contains the quote that inspired the album title, while the fourth movement features the criticism that generated the ensemble’s name. All movements are composed in the musical style of the composer being lampooned, blending humour with clever homage.

Melissa Dunphy: Chants – II. Swoon-Number, Sung by Don Qui Bray

Next is Dunphy’s Chants, a four-movement work based on the life of New Zealand-born artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton, whose erotic and esoteric paintings shocked 1950s Australia. Norton was prosecuted for her art, and some of her works were destroyed. The music reflects this daring life, alternating between jazz-inflected, toe-tapping passages and haunting, flowing lines. Listeners can hear the word “infinity” in movement one, set so that the music feels like a journey into infinity itself. Movement two is playful and dance-like, movement three flows in 6/8 meter with subtle irregularities, and movement four features text painting on the word “swirling.”

Brandon’s Multitudinous Stars and Spring Waters draws on centuries of poetry by Chinese women, often written in secret and suppressed by social restrictions. The text comes from Women Poets of China, edited and translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung. Originally for oboe and soprano, the piece was adapted for clarinet and soprano by Brandon. Listeners should note the sectional structure, with pauses at new text points and rich emotional shifts across love, waiting, disappointment, grief, and admiration, offering a deeply moving glimpse into a previously hidden literary tradition.

Cherise Leiter: Dear Old Year (the memories of a matriarch) – VI. A Cure for Asthma

The album concludes with Leiter’s Dear Old Year, a seven-movement work using the journal entries of her great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Johnson Chapin, found in a barn in New York. These entries recount daily life on a family farm in the early 1900s, including recipes for curing ailments such as dropsy, asthma, and smallpox, reflections on potatoes as a staple crop, and December 31st entries spanning 1902, 1903, 1904, 1906, and 1910. The work combines humour, nostalgia, and historical insight, offering listeners an intimate glimpse into a past life while highlighting the enduring human connection across generations.

The recording process, despite its lawnmower interruptions, went smoothly thanks to recording engineer Jonathan Galle and producer Robert Armstrong. The album captures the duo’s signature blend of polish, playfulness, and intimacy, making the music accessible yet richly nuanced.

Ensemble Whistling Hens

Outside of Whistling Hens, Piazza-Pick and Groom continue to champion women composers through research, performance, and teaching. Piazza-Pick publishes scholarly work and premieres overlooked repertoire, including Margaret Bonds’ Bitter Laurel, while Groom leads Flexing the Canon, a commissioning project for chamber ensembles designed to be flexible, student-friendly, and musically sophisticated.

Through humour, scholarship, and fearless programming, Whistling Hens has built an ensemble that is bold, intelligent, and deeply engaging. From musical satire to intimate historical reflections, the duo proves that classical music can be playful, inclusive, and profoundly human. With Big Crass Monster, they invite listeners to experience classical music as lively, inventive, and full of personality.