San Domenico School's acclaimed Virtuoso Program presents "Women in Music" at 3 p.m. March 3, in the Bettye Poetz Ferguson Hall. This the third such benefit event (to benefit the Virtuoso Program Scholarship Fund) of repertoire written for the string quartet or string ensemble by women composers. Fanny Mendelssohn's String Quartet in Eb opens the program, followed by Prologue and Variations, by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, first female recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Each of San Domenico's three string quartets performs a movement of Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz' String Quartet No. 4, and the string orchestra presents a new work by Virtuoso Program violinist Jo Griffin. Bay Area resident Nancy Bloomer Deussen will introduce her Peninsula Suite for string orchestra and string quartet. And guests Quartet Rouge, including San Domenico faculty member Kathy Marshall, lead the orchestra "in original renditions of contemporary classics" not further specified.