The Gena Branscombe Project

08/08/2026

Cameron Smith, winner of The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2021 composer scholarship, orchestrated the soundtrack to the “The Last House,” a recently released Netflix movie!

You can listen to her work on Spotify!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5SX7hFq2WLqUd3mQZe7DSe

Congratulations, Cameron!

08/05/2026

The Picton Gazette has written a wonderful article about the upcoming "From Picton to the World: Bringing Home the Music of Gena Branscombe" concert! Great article!

https://pictongazette.ca/post/the-countys-composer

Born and raised in the County, composer, pianist and choral conductor Gena Branscombe launched into an internationally renowned classical music career in the early 20th century, a time when few female composers could earn recognition, never mind acclaim. While her career was based in the United Stat...

08/03/2026

Four of The Gena Branscombe Project’s conductor scholarship winners have been having busy summers.
This year’s conductor winner, Valentina Paolucci, has spent several weeks this summer at the Domaine Forget Académie internationale de musique et de danse in Saint-Irénée, Quebec being inspired with beautiful music making and learning from world renowned conductors Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Kensho Watanabe. The culmination of her weeks of lessons and coachings was the honor of conducting the Orchestre Métropolitain in the final concert. Congratulations, Valentina.

Hannah Nacheman, winner in 2023, will be Music Director at Co-Lab Works at Avaloch Farm in Boscawen, New Hampshire where she will lead rehearsals of Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes for chorus and piano four hands as well as other chamber pieces. Set in the idyllic New Hampshire countryside, the purpose of the singers and pianists days is to eat, sleep, practice, rehearse and then perform at the end of the week! Sounds quite wonderful.

Valery Saul, winner in 2022, made her debut with the Nashville Symphony in a program honoring Dolly Parton
Micah Gleason, winner in 2021, recently conducted the Utah Symphony Orchestra in Park City, Utah for a program of Mozart’s overture to Don Giovanni. Prokofiev’s Sinfonietta and Louise Farrenc’s elegant and dramatic Symphony No. 3.

Congratulations to all of our conductor winners! You are carrying on Gena Branscombe’s legacy of inspired music making. Thank you!











# Co-LabWorksatAvaloch Farm
# DomaineForgetAcadémieinternationaledemusiqueetdedanse

08/01/2026

Two weeks from today....."From Picton to the World: Bringing Home the Music of Gena Branscombe." A wonderful concert celebrating Gena's beloved Canada and her hometown of Picton from her settings of Canadian poets, her piano works, her violin sonata and more.

Come join us!

07/17/2026

Congratulations to Valery Saul for her final performance with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra on July 4th. Closing out her tenure with the symphony she conducted Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture complete with fireworks!

Moving on to the Nashville Symphony as Associate Conductor, Valery will make her debut in the Music City conducting a Dolly Parton tribute!

In 2022 The Gena Branscombe Project awarded Valery the Conductor scholarship.

07/16/2026

Harley Winzenried, (they/she), The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2026 Arts Administrator scholarship winner, is a Vermont-based theatremaker.

Harley has been described in the press as displaying "skill beyond her years," and their work is guided by the objective of providing a space for the stories of historically excluded voices to be shared.

They are the founder and program director of the Historically Close Friends new play development project, a program of Between The Willows, Burlington's premiere q***r theatre & dance company. They are also a member of The Furnace, an artists' collective that programs ensemble-driven theatre & donation-based skill-sharing opportunities.

In the education realm, Harley serves as the Festival Associate for the Young Playwrights Festival at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and volunteers as a theatre educator & program coordinator at Camp Treetops in the Adirondacks. Vermont locals may have seen Harley's acting performances with Vermont Stage, Lost Nation Theater, Full Circle Theatre Co, The Foul Contending Rebels Theatre Co, The Furnace, Vermont Repertory Theatre, The Hub, and Lyric Theatre Company. North Carolinians may have seen them with Paper Lantern Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Charlotte, and the North Carolina Theatre For Young People.

Harley's dramaturgical work has supported development and production processes in New York City, Chicago, London, and Burlington, Vermont. They are a proud alum of the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and hold a BA in Drama from UNCG. For more info, visit:
www.harleywinzenried.com

07/16/2026

The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2026 Composer scholarship winner Hannah Mufuka is a composer and sound artist from Decatur, Georgia.

She is a recipient of a 2025-2026 Kenan Fellowship at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where she developed and premiered an original composition, Mbira, My Love. In 2024-2025, she was a See/a/change fellow, where she collaborated on two environmental arts pieces, both of which premiered at the Winston-Salem Arts Council in 2025.

Hannah Mufuka has worked with various ensembles, such as the Golden Hornet Quartet, Decoda, the European Recording Orchestra, and Ensemble Intercolor, and her compositions have been presented in the United States and Europe. Additionally, as an Emerging Composers Program Fellow at the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, she premiered a new composition, Osprey, at the Juilliard School. Currently, Hannah continues to lean into her passion for environmental advocacy through the NC Climate Justice Collective TapRoots Arts Residency and the Good Hart Artist Residency.

Hannah Mufuka holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied with esteemed composer Dr. Lawrence Dillon and Emmy-nominated sound designer Mark Messick.

07/16/2026

Get to know The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2026 Conductor scholarship winner, Valentina Paolucci! She is a rising orchestral conductor and violinist currently based in New York City.

A recent graduate from the Juilliard School with a Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting, she was awarded the Robert Craft-Igor Stravinsky Conducting Award upon graduation. Valentina is currently a Conducting Fellow with The Chelsea Symphony and Music Director of the NYO-USA Alumni Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Internationally, Valentina has conducted orchestras such as the Zhixing Symphony Orchestra (China), Brandenburger Symphoniker (Germany), Lüneburger Symphoniker (Germany), Orquesta de Cámara de Santiago (Chile), Athens Philharmonia Orchestra (Greece) along with orchestras in Finland, Bulgaria, and Panama.

In the United States she has conducted orchestras such as the Richmond Symphony, Georgia Symphony Orchestra, Jackson Symphony, Adelphi Orchestra and Juilliard Orchestra. Valentina has assisted the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Grand Rapids Symphony for conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Harding, Ruth Reinhardt, Ken-David Masur, Marin Alsop, Mei-Ann Chen, Tito Muñoz, Gemma New, and David Robertson.

Valentina is deeply committed to contemporary music and has collaborated with living composers such as David Lang, Augusta Reed Thomas, Jennifer Higdon, John Adams, Tania León and more.

Passionate about music education, she previously served as Assistant Conductor of the Greater Miami Youth Symphony and co-founded Through the Staff, 501(c)(3), a nonprofit organization providing free music lessons to underserved students.

07/16/2026

The Gena Branscombe Project is proud to announce our 2026 Scholarship winners.

Congratulations to Harley Winzenried, Arts Administrator, Hannah Mufuka, Composition and Valentina Paolucci, Conductor.

These outstanding people are carrying on Gena Branscombe's legacy of dedicated work in the arts.

Also, a special thank you to a patron who generously donated this year's scholarship money.

07/14/2026

Congratulations to Lauren Koszyk, The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2025 Arts Administration scholarship winner. Now known as Dr. Lauren Koszyk, she recently graduated from the University of North Texas.

Working on a doctorate is a demanding journey with recitals, papers, doctoral exams and doctoral projects. The realization of Gena Branscombe’s unfinished opera, The Bells of Circumstance was her project. Working from the original manuscript, she created a publishable and performable score. Thank you! A selection from the score will be performed on the concert, “From Picton to the World: Bringing Home the Music of Gena Branscombe” which will take place August 15th in Picton, Ontario, Gena’s hometown.

Lauren has been hired by the Dallas Opera as “Education Assistant Pianist” which will include performing the opera The Bremen Town Musicians by John Davies at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas.

We wish you all the best, Lauren. See you in Picton in a few weeks!