Contemporary Music Forum at the Corcoran

The Corcoran Gallery of Art hosts a couple of interesting series of concerts, and Ionarts is particularly fond of the one presented by the gallery's resident ensemble, the Contemporary Music Forum. So, on Sunday at the first concert of this group, which presents examples of new music four times per year, Ionarts was there in the front row. When I plugged this concert in my weekly column at DCist, it was largely out of interest in hearing a piece by George Perle, who is 90 years old this year. Critical Moments, from 1996, is a set of six movements for piano, violin, cello, flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet (doubling on E-flat clarinet), and percussion. Due to a shortage of copies of the program, we had very interesting verbal introductions from the performers before each piece. No sooner had violinist Lina Bahn told us that the players had decided that the movements were humorous that a baby in the audience started crying. "That's mine," Ms. Bahn let us know.

Other Reviews: Tim Page, Contemporary Music Forum, Squeezing Plenty In (Washington Post, September 20)

By the third movement, another small child in the gallery's semicircular Hammer Auditorium was loudly announcing, "I don't like the drum!" Far be it from me to dislike music because it makes children cry: Perle's pointillistic textures did not disappoint, especially the shrill tone of the high winds. It was also very entertaining to see the single percussion player manage the considerable battery, even at one point rubbing the edge of a cymbal with what looked like a double-bass bow. However, the Perle was not the best piece on the program. I much preferred the Toccata that followed it, by Rice University composer Pierre Jalbert, with its constant barrage of running notes and quasi-minimalistic sound managed skillfully by pianist Audrey Andrist. The first half concluded with Donald Erb's Three Poems for Violin and Piano, from 1987, a work originally commissioned by the Library of Congress McKim Commission. The most interesting movement was the middle one, also called Toccata, which attempts to describe the sound of "rats' feet over broken glass," a line quoted from the first part of T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

The violin creates all sort of high rat-like sounds, while the pianist strikes the keyboard with flat palm or even the entire arm. Duct tape applied over the piano's upper strings created a hollow, percussive sound that was eerily appropriate. The most impressive performance was of Derek Bermel's Turning, a marvelous set of variations on an invented Protestant-style hymn tune, which bears an uncanny likeness to "Jesus loves me, this I know" (as pianist Lura Johnson explained before her spot-on performance). Lastly, something special happens when a composer creates a piece of music especially for a specific performer. In this case, that was Jeffrey Mumford, who wrote an expanding distance of multiple voices, based on the perfect fifths of the violin's open strings, for the group's excellent violinist, Lina Bahn. (Both are shown in the photograph above.) All in all, it was an entertaining afternoon of new music at the Corcoran.

Takács Quartet and Friends

Schumann, Piano Quintet, Takács Quartet, Marc-André Hamelin (released on November 10, 2009) Hyperion CDA67631 | 56'33" Beethoven, Middle Period String Quartets, Takács Quartet Online scores: Haydn, op. 71/2 | Beethoven, op. 59/3 Schumann, Piano Quintet (op. 44)

The Ionarts obsession with the recordings and (perhaps even more) live concerts of the Takács Quartet is pronounced enough that the ensemble has its own Ionarts label. We followed them anxiously through the retirement of violist Roger Tapping, who has been succeeded quite admirably by Geraldine Walther, and we arrived in the Music Center at Strathmore with some concern about the prognosis for founding second violinist Károly Schranz. He recently underwent rotator cuff surgery but is reportedly recovering well and by this September plans to resume performing with the quartet he helped found in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. For this spring's concerts, Lina Bahn, whom we have admired many times both with the Corigliano Quartet and elsewhere, sat in for him, a daunting task but one of which she was quite capable.

The opening Haydn, op. 71/2, was delivered with a bright, elegant first movement, the first theme's octave motif leaping off the page and rocketing crisply around the ring of instruments. First violinist Edward Dusinberre had an impeccably clear tone in the soaring lines and florid solo decoration of the slow movement, over a glowing ember kind of sound from the other instruments. Bahn seemed a little unsure at a couple points in the fourth movement, a sweet little dance, which added to the impression of the performance as beautiful but not exceptional. In any case, the following Beethoven, the third of the Rasumovsky quartets (op. 59/3), is more of a Takács specialty. It opened with a series of almost disembodied chords, glistening reflections, followed by another virtuosic display by the first violin, best in its sort-of cadenza, set in a dream-like stasis.

The second movement was the most memorable, a gloomy serenade that floated above the pizzicato cello. The tempo here was just right, allowed the pulse to rock back and forth, never feeling rushed. The quartet wisely did not try to force the sound, in a vain attempt to fill the hall, requiring the listener to come to them, leaning close as if to see the varnished smoothness of an exquisite artwork's surface. The other excellent part of this performance was a dazzlingly fast performance of the fourth movement, its fugal opening another test for Bahn, as the subject, a cascade of fast notes, is handed first to the viola and second violin. It was certainly fine Beethoven, if not quite that inexplicably breath-taking Takács Beethoven. This fall, presumably with their regular second violinist, the Takács Quartet undertakes a collaborative project with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival called Quartet, a play by David Lawrence Morse about Beethoven's late quartets, for which the ensemble will play one of those late quartets, op. 132.

Other Reviews: Joe Banno, Takacs retains richness, even with pinch-hitter (Washington Post, April 19)

One might wonder why Washington Performing Arts Society decided to present this concert at Strathmore, a venue too large for this kind of chamber music -- in terms of both the acoustic (especially for the two quartets on the first half, where the sound seemed to rattle around in the large space) and the vast number of seats to fill. For the second half, with a Steinway concert grand behind them, the ensemble seemed to come to life, everyone seeming more comfortable with pianist Joyce Yang: the sound issue from the first half was instantly resolved. Yang, it turns out, is an excellent chamber musician, keeping herself in the background until her moments to bring out a bass line or the principal melody in this performance of one of the most perfect works of chamber music, Schumann's piano quintet (E♭ major, op. 44), featured on the quartet's most recent recording (with Marc-André Hamelin). Its second movement, so tragic in an understated way, was played here as a quiet, rueful funeral march, followed by a breathless third movement, where Yang gave a thrilling touch to the many détaché runs of notes and chords. This was a stupendous performance of a gorgeous piece of music.

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WPAS has followed its usual formula in planning its 2010-2011 season, returning to many of its usual favorites. While this generally means few surprises, it also guarantees that many of their concerts are not to be missed. Things are no different next season, which features the following highlights, which can be gleaned, with some effort, from an extremely complicated interactive brochure: Yo-Yo Ma in a program that is a little pops or gala concert in tone (October 21), Anne-Sophie Mutter with Lambert Orkis playing all the Brahms violin sonatas (November 13), Renée Fleming in a recital of something or other (January 8), Evgeny Kissin in what promises to be a knockout all-Liszt program (March 5), and Maurizio Pollini playing the last three Beethoven sonatas (March 30). It will also have visiting orchestras, including the Mariinsky with Gergiev in Mahler's 8th symphony (October 19), the Dresden Staatskapelle with Daniel Harding (November 3), the Boston Symphony Orchestra with James Levine (or, quite possibly, someone else -- March 19), and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Charles Dutoit (May 20). Of greatest interest if slightly less star wattage are appearances by Joyce DiDonato (February 15), András Schiff in an all-Schumann program (October 20), Marc-André Hamelin (April 29), Kapell Competition winner Sofya Gulyak (January 22), Till Fellner (January 29), and a devilish program from an Ionarts favorite, Pierre-Laurent Aimard (May 5). See the rest for yourself.

Moravec and More at the Contemporary Music Forum

The first Contemporary Music Forum concert of the season got under way last Sunday at the Corcoran Gallery. James Mobberly, Kaija Saariaho, Paul Lansky, and Paul Moravec were featured by Audrey Andrist (piano), Lina Bahn (violin), Tobias Werner (cello), Barry Dove (marimba), and David Jones (bass-/clarinet). Although the concert was not billed as such, it might well have been titled “Introduction to Contemporary Classical Music”… with all works easy on the novice ears, easy on our mood, and suitable even for children.

Most accessible and fun of them was the aptly named Hop, Paul Lansky’s 1993 contribution to the underdeveloped field of silly, toyful [sic!] music scored for marimba and violin. A wonderful example that decidedly modern contemporary classical music can still perform the essential (if not sole) function of all music: entertain. It did that with humor, coy sounds, and clap-along rhythms – but never by pandering. Lisa Bahn and Barry Dove (whose blues playing in the respective section might have been a little ‘too behaved’) were responsible for the warmhearted, immaculate performance.

Opening the concert was Mobberly’s Caution to the Winds, a duet for piano and tape. Recorded and sampled piano sounds (spat back out from what is now, in 2006, a CD player) engaged with Ms. Andrist’s piano playing. It reminds a little of György Kurtág’s Játékok (Games), and the computer sounds betray their 1987 vintage. But whereas the limitations of electronic sound production on a computer in the '80s (perhaps impressive at the time) were soon thereafter an acoustic embarrassment to our ears, they have by now acquired a patina of nostalgia and a humorous twang. In its race against and collaboration with the piano, it becomes a droll affair of (wo-)man vs. machine; a machine that sounds like a cross between R2-D2 and a saloon upright. That the whole thing is rich with musical ideas made it a happier affair, still.

Kaija Saariaho’s Petals, as of late available on CD (see ionarts review) appeared between the two works as apt contrast. Modern music like Petals (with general, rather than precise instructions to ‘create sounds’, not play certain notes at certain values) often leaves more room for interpretation and alteration as part of the performance than standard repertoire. The live experience is therefore alive… always changing and somewhat unpredictable. This not only adds to the occasion of hearing the music (whether for the first or fifth time), it predestines this kind of music for live performance. Recordings can help us understand such works better – but there is a touch of the silly involved, just like it is both cute and stupid to make a recording of aleatory music.

Other Reviews: Charles T. Downey, Contemporary Music Forum (DCist, September 19)

Whether you hear grinding glaciers, gray stones, and glass pebbles in Petals or something else altogether, it is a highly evocative score. Cellist Tobias Werner – supported by the computerized alterations that shadowed him – made the most of it. An impressive performance that would have deserved to delight more ears than found their way to the Francis and Armand Hammer Auditorium.

Paul Moravec’s Tempest Fantasy (for piano trio and bass-/clarinet) was introduced by the composer himself. It would be failure on the part of the composer not to make a work of that title sound tempestuous and failure on part of the critic to find no other description for it. Alas, Mr. Moravec himself described the opening of the fifth and last movement (Fantasia) so and quoting him is my excuse for not coming up with descriptive prose more purple.

Fantasia, which might well have been titled “Prospero Prevailing,” sums up the Puliter Prize-winning Tempest Fantasy’s first four movements: a spiky-joyous and flighty characterization of Ariel; the melancholic cello that is a lamenting Prospero; the limping dance of Caliban in the third movement (Peter and the Wolf just around the corner). And Sweet Airs, exposed on ‘Ariel’s’ violin and inspired by Caliban’s speech “The Isle is Full of Noises” (III.ii.130–138). G-D-A-E (the violin’s open strings) dominate Ariel, the Prospero cello-theme is prominantly summoned in the Fantasia - but now imbued with the jazzy beat the first movement hinted at. Caliban, a “misshapen monster” (Moravec) is portrayed by David Jones’s bass clarinet. Apt, too – since the description “misshapen monster” equally applies to that absurd-looking instrument... a Three-Mile-Island love-child between a clarinet and a saxophone.

Enough critics have commented on just how splendid (if backwards looking) a work the Tempest Fantasy is (it really is an attractive combination of cogent, sometimes challenging, melodic, lyrical, wild music with fun and high spirits packed into it). I don’t think that either the third or fourth movement would be hurt if they were a tad briefer, but whenever played as impressively as on Sunday (it may be easy on the ears but seems cruelly difficult to play), it is all too easy to see why Terry Teachout has for so long been an ardent champion of Paul Moravec’s music.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.

Corigliano Quartet at the LoC

Speeches before a concert should be considered emergency-only measures to illustrate difficult works that need context. Other than that they ought to be avoided, especially when most of the information is contained in the accompanying notes. I am afraid I’ll encounter that sort of speech many more times; to avoid writing similar introductions I will simply state the cause by writing “Speech!” Consider this review of the Corigliano Quartet’s appearance at the Library of Congress on Friday the first such occasion.

I usually don’t go to the events at the Library of Congress anymore, but with Charles’s ears contained elsewhere and with a program that included Aulis Sallinen, Elliot Carter, and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (as well as some Brahms), I simply could not resist. Aside – with that kind of a program seating was bound not to be a problem.

The Sallinen Oboe Quintet, Echoes from a Play, is a tone- and tuneful little thing. The “more than a touch of irony” that Sallinen says is concealed beneath that “overt tunefulness” escaped me entirely, but I enjoyed the work tremendously, nonetheless. Perhaps it was hiding in that beer-hall jaunty one-two–one-two pizzicato accompaniment of the lower strings. With a string quartet and superimposed oboe, the work establishes a modern-music atmosphere that other composers – Tan Dun comes to mind, although he, too, can be economical – need a few more instruments for. (Upon checking the program again, the work is not an “Oboe Quintet” but a work “for Oboe and String Quartet” – which is exactly how it sounds.) Oboist Thomas Gallant, who performed it with the Corigliano Quartet, had commissioned the work and played its world premiere 14 years ago at Ravinia.

Before the Carter, the four young members of the quartet introduced the Library of Congress’s instruments they were playing. Before I cry Speech! again, I’ll admit that their presentation of these instruments’ strengths was actually interesting. (I just don’t know why they felt compelled to praise the Library ever so effusively for lending the instruments to them: playing these instruments does the Library as much or more a favor than it is one for the Library to lend them in the first place. Consequently, virtually every artist performing there is offered that privilege.) Michael Jinsoo Lim, first violinist, gushed about the Guarneri del Gesù Kreisler violin and proceeded to voluntarily out himself as a “huge, huge fan of Kreisler.” Second violinist Lina Bahn loved ‘her’ Amati Brookings, violist Melia Watras the Stradivari Cassevetti, and Amy Sue Barston the Strad Castelbarco cello.

These musicians minus second violin but with the continued support of Mr. Gallant got together for the 2001 Oboe Quartet of Carter’s – originally written for Heinz Holliger. I am not sure how much of the just-displayed sweetness of the strings came across to the audience in that work. With the oboe in prominent position, such works tend to sound like a nervous chicken on acid. I don’t love the work, I just like it… and I would not hold it against anyone if they didn’t. If the quartet is not one of Carter’s pieces that was particular meaningful to me upon first exposure, it certainly wasn’t ugly or abrasive even by modestly conservative standards. As long as I don’t have to pretend to “understand” such works, I find them an enjoyable listening experience. The audience, filtered by the principle of self-selection, appreciated it, too – which was heartening.

Both, the Sallinen and the Carter were written as complementary pieces for the Mozart Oboe Quartet. It would have been a delight to hear the Mozart between Sallinen and Carter, but it was not to be. Not to spare oboist Gallant, however: he had plenty more lung power which he put to good use in the Coolidge Sonata for Oboe and Piano from 1947. It is an ambitious work with a mighty and earnest struggle to claim some bittersweet, some pastoral, sweeping melody. If it were infused with more musical talent, it might have succeeded, too. As it was, we heard a work that struggles audibly, mightily towards greatness (however futile), an underrated work perhaps... and balm to those ears that had been offended by the Carter. Pedja Muzijevic accompanied gallantly.

The Corigliano Quartet was united again in the Brahms, where they played the ever-gorgeous Piano Quintet in F Minor, op. 34 from 1865, with Mr. Muzijevic. He had more opportunity here to display his skill and sensitive playing. Some intonation and tone-production problems of Ms. Bahn – now on first violin with the Kreisler-fiddle – were no hindrance to a warm embrace of this music. Ms. Bartson’s cello work was the most impressive and consistent of the four, alone in making the most of her instrument’s potential. If some of this sounds overly critical, it must be said that the concert was far more than the sum of its parts. In particular because of exciting and intelligent programming, it was an utterly enjoyable evening.

The concert was the Library of Congress’s Founders Day Concert and marked the 80th anniversary of the first concert. Then it included only works of E. S. Coolidge. With its great auditorium, good artists and vibrant (usually Coolidge-free) programs, it’s no wonder the concert series is still around and well.

New Music in the East Building

Read my review published today on the Washington Post Web site:

Charles T. Downey, New ensemble for new music explores National Gallery atrium
Washington Post, March 9, 2010

Is the problem with some contemporary composers that their music is more interesting as described in the program notes than performed in actual sound? That theory trumps practice? The promising inaugural concert by the new National Gallery of Art New Music Ensemble on Sunday night, called "Changes: Seasons," presented new compositions "at the crossing point of music, architecture, technology and art," although whether that was true of what was heard is open to debate.

American composers Roger Reynolds and Steve Antosca created a program supposedly crafted to the peculiar architectural and acoustic space of the National Gallery of Art's East Building atrium. Placing speakers at strategic points throughout the building, they aimed to surround the audience with a location-specific sound, using a computer program that captures the amplified sound of instruments played by live musicians and processes it electronically into something new.

With guidance from computer musician Jaime Oliver, the computer took the squeaks and growls from Lina Bahn's violin and Alexis Descharmes's cello, the flutter-tongued purring and avian tittering of Lisa Cella's flute, the low-throated bass clarinet of Bill Kalinkos and the frantic jangle of Ross Karre's various percussion instruments and spit them back out into the room. The first time that those sounds, a digital whirr or whine or whistle, sped around the space like a comet trail, it brought a smile to one's face. After 90 minutes, one was ready to hear something else. [Continue reading]

National Gallery of Art New Music Ensemble
Music by Roger Reynolds, Steve Antosca, Varèse, Xenakis
National Gallery of Art

PREVIOUSLY:

• Anne Midgette, Changes: Seasons (Washington Post, March 6)
  
• Reynolds, Sanctuary (National Gallery of Art, 2007 -- one of my picks for Worst New Composition of the Decade)

Cage 100, Part 1: John Cage sans champignons

Wednesday evening for a full house, the Contemporary Series at La Maison Française, in conjunction with the John Cage Centennial Festival, presented a tribute evening led by French cellist Alexis Descharmes. For the most part, contemporary works by Cage, Beat Furrer, Pierre Boulez, and Klaus Huber were paired with Descharmes's own instrumental arrangements of piano music by Erik Satie, a composer Cage held in high esteem. There is an apparent "proximity to silence" that these composers share. High points of the program included a 1982 letter from Pierre Boulez to John Cage, recorded in French and English by French actor Michael Lonsdale, that spoke of "keeping freshness for times to come." This letter was followed by Boulez's own tour-de-force Messagesquisse for cello and cello ensemble (though Descharmes recorded their parts himself), where the patron's name, Sacher, is spelled both melodically (E flat-A-C-B-E-D) and rhythmically through vivacious morse code.

A visual dimension was added when Descharmes shared 200 closeup photos of Gerhard Richter's series of six paintings titled Cage on a big screen overhead. Descharmes rigged the slides to change whenever he tapped his foot on a pedal -- every 7 to 10 seconds on average -- while performing Cage's extended Music for Two with violinist Irvine Arditti. The colorful, visibly raw brush strokes paired cogently with the bow strokes of the string players, who used stopwatches to pace their respective periods of silence and movement. While pianist Jenny Lin's approach to the Satie Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes was refreshing to the overall tone (or lack thereof) of the program, Descharmes idea of adding string and clarinet parts often undermined the works. In these slow works, Satie masterfully combats the decay of the piano by having accompanimental chords subtly sustain melodic notes. The expressive clarinet (Bill Kalinkos) and string players (Lina Bahn with Descharmes) tended to push the intensity of long notes in a way that moved the character of these pieces away from the proximity of silence.

Other Reviews: Stephen Brookes, Cellist Alexis Descharmes and friends pay tribute to John Cage (Washington Post, September 7)

Program note writer Erik Ulmann quoted Descharmes, writing that he spent a July evening "eating mushrooms" while preparing for this Cage evening, and that it was then that he came upon the Richter retrospective at the Centre Pompidou. There is an authenticity in Descharmes's magic mushroom consumption when planning a Cage evening, though who knows if Descharmes actually gently picked the shrooms off of cow dung in green farmland as Cage, a renowned mycologist, may have done, or obtained them from less earthy sources. No matter the caliber of one's ears and listening experience, this repertoire is challenging. Imagining the aid of having consumed magic mushrooms prior to listening to seemingly randomized cello scratches by Descharmes interspersed with snare drum stick taps on the stick holding up the piano lid by and other interesting techniques by Steven Schick in Cage's Etudes Boréales gives one the feeling of hope that it is possible to be in the know. Indeed, we too may be able to understand Cage's music, and even the painful fingers scratching-down-the-chalkboard, spine-twinging disharmony of Klaus Huber's ...ruhe sanft... for cello, recorded cello, and a few recorded words, by listening after eating magic mushrooms. The key being to be mentally distorted by an organic drug before experiencing the intentional aural brutality of some of this repertoire. I look forward to comments from readers who have experimented with Cage avec champignons.

Classical Music Agenda: September 2013

September is just around the corner, and that means the return of the Classical Music Agenda. For those who are new around here, this is a regular post in which I pick the ten performances I think are the highlights of the month here in Washington. The rest of the calendar will scroll through the sidebar as the month goes by.

Conductor Philippe Auguin

OPERA:
Washington National Opera's production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde was one of my Top Picks for the Season in Washington. This staging, borrowed from Opera Australia, will have just five performances (September 15 to 27) in the Kennedy Center Opera House (see Thomas May's fine program notes on the opera). It is true that the voice of American soprano Deborah Voigt has sadly lost some of its luster in the last few years, and her Tristan will be Ian Storey, who canceled out of Götterdämmerung and Ariadne auf Naxos a few years ago and was not great in WNO's 2008 Der Fliegende Holländer. I hope for great things in this production because of the chance that music director Philippe Auguin and his orchestra will work the same magic heard in the 2009 Götterdämmerung. Another important player in that performance, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Bishop, will sing Brangäne.

The other opera we plan to hear is Washington Concert Opera's performance of Verdi's I Masnadieri (September 22, 6 pm) at GWU's Lisner Auditorium. Verdi himself conducted the premiere of this opera, in 1847 in London (with none other than Jenny Lind starring as Amalia), one of the composer's less appreciated early operas to round out the Verdi bicentenary. It will feature another chance to hear soprano Lisette Oropesa as Amalia, who would have costarred with René Barbera until he canceled, to be replaced by tenor Russell Thomas. The story, based on Schiller's Die Räuber, concerns two brothers, the older of whom is driven away from the woman he loves to a life of crime with a band of robbers. The libretto by Andrea Maffei, most scholars agree, is not one of the best that Verdi chose.

CONTEMPORARY:
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will present the world American premiere of the new saxophone concerto by John Adams (September 20 and 22 in Baltimore, September 21 at Strathmore). Saxophonist Tim McAllister (pictured) will do the honors as soloist, and Marin Alsop will also conduct Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (with the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters Chorus). Other than the Adams, it is bland programming indeed, which has been my main complaint about the BSO season for the last few years.

Get your fill of the area's main contemporary music ensembles, beginning with the VERGE Ensemble in a free concert at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (September 8). All I can say about the program so far is that "pianist Laurie Hudicek, flutist David Whiteside, violinist Lina Bahn, and cellist Tobias Werner [will] trace the lyrical and folk underpinnings of American classical music." Inscape Chamber Orchestra opens its season with a concert in the Mansion at Strathmore (September 12), playing music by Ravel, Justin Boyer, Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, and Joseph Hallman (a piece called, irresistibly, imagined landscapes : six Lovecraftian elsewheres). Finally, the Great Noise Ensemble kicks off the New Music Series at the Atlas Performing Arts Center (September 21) for its second season in residence there. The program will consist entirely of newly commissioned pieces inspired by the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, by composers Matt Marks, Joshua Bornfield, Daniel Felsenfeld, and many more.

EARLY:
Washington's early music offerings are just as varied as its new music ones, and this month you can catch the first concert of the season for the Washington Bach Consort (September 22), a program of mostly Italian music featuring soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani at National Presbyterian Church. If you wanted to hear Vivaldi's famous Gloria again, this is your concert, but fortunately it will also feature less commonly heard pieces by Bach, Pergolesi, and Francesco Bartolomeo Conti.

For something a little earlier, there is an interesting program called Map of the World: Music from 13th- and 15th-Century Spain from the Folger Consort (September 27 to 29), in the beautiful theater of the Folger Shakespeare Library. The selection of music includes the Cantigas d'amigo by Martim Codax, and a mass by Juan Cornago. The quartet of singers is headlined by tenor Aaron Sheehan, an Ionarts favorite, and soprano Emily Noël, who is another fine singer we first discovered thanks to Timothy Nelson and his Ignoti Dei company.

HOLLYWOOD:
The National Symphony Orchestra Season Opening Ball Concert (September 29) is always a big production, generally more noteworthy for its red-carpet qualities than the music. Christoph Eschenbach, about to embark on his fourth season at the helm of the NSO, has made an effort in recent years to give some more weight to this event, but this year is once again mostly about glitz. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is trotted out for the saccharine Rococo-Variations by Tchaikovsky, paired with the same composer's Romeo and Juliet. On the second half, a Pops-worthy Carmen Suite No. 2, and then just the last movement of Saint-Saëns's Organ-Symphony. For the latter, a piece that is only minimally about the organ part at all, the NSO turns to Cameron Carpenter as soloist, hopefully with white shoes and rhinestone cape. This is probably not an evening for anyone who cares about music and does not also happen to have a lot of money to donate to the NSO.

Fellowship of the Ring, Wolf Trap (photo by Priska Ketterer Luzern)

The soundtracks from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, composed by Howard Shore, are not great music, but like the best soundtracks this music increases the cinematic impact of the scenes it accompanies without drawing attention to itself. The Filene Center at Wolf Trap has now hosted an entire cycle of the three movies, screened with a live performance of the music cued to the film. From our experiences of The Two Towers (2009) and The Return of the King (2010), I can say that anyone who enjoyed these movies will get a thrill out of these performances. This year, Wolf Trap begins the trilogy anew this year with two performances of Fellowship of the Ring (September 6 and 7), again featuring the City Choir of Washington.

See the complete September calendar after the jump.

Read more »

Contemporary Music Forum, National Gallery

We welcome another review from Ionarts guest contributor Michael Lodico.

Patrons of the National Gallery of Art’s free Sunday evening concert series were treated to a superb evening of works by John Cage performed by the Contemporary Music Forum. Since Cage and painter Jasper Johns were acquainted, the program was presented in conjuction with the Jasper Johns exhibit that is on view through April 29th at the NGA. (This was the final concert of the 62nd American Music Festival, the first part of which was reviewed here). It offered listeners just over an hour of concise, yet diverse works. Adding to the concert’s accessibility were the written and verbal program notes (.PDF file), both of which were well prepared and concise.

Amores, composed in 1943 for prepared piano and percussion, was executed with absolute steadiness and clarity. The piano was modified with nine screws, eight bolts, two nuts, and three strips of rubber, which gave it a vibrant percussion section of its own. The musicians, under the musical direction of Steve Antosca, did an excellent job adapting to the cathedral-like acoustic of the NGA’s West Garden Court by keeping tempi on the safe side, which consequently added strength to their performance. When forte and above, their sound was always full, thus never overbearingly loud.

Credo in US was composed in 1942 for piano, percussion, and radio or phonograph. While no match in volume for the percussion and piano, the obsequious first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was interspersed throughout the work by a stereo. Among the muted gongs, tin cans, and tom-toms, the electric buzzer called for in the score reminded the ear of a car horn standing out in an urban maze of noise. Instead of the electric buzzer, perhaps Cage – if still living – would have approved of the substitution of a cell phone ring to bring the piece up to date. A blues-like vamp on the piano evolves from the commotion of urban noise toward the end of the piece, inviting the audience to ponder sounds of daily life as music.

The woodblocks and bamboo sticks in Trio, from 1936, for percussion, evoked sounds of the rainforest. The gem of the program was Nocturne, composed in 1947 for violin and piano. Here violinist Lina Bahn and pianist Lura Johnson gave an ideal performance by letting their notes fully sustain in the room and then melt together into the wet acoustic of the narrow, yet high-ceilinged space. Programming a piece lacking a perceptible time signature at this point in the program was very clever. Cage described this work as “an attempt to dissolve the difference between string and piano sounds.” The effect was magical.

The Third Construction, composed in 1941 for percussion, is mathematically based upon twenty-four parts of twenty-four measures each, which are layered upon one another. The piece began with a rainforest-like texture due to the cricket-caller, rattles, and an instrument replicating a lion’s roar. This concluding piece then developed into a powerful frenzy, above which entered the sound of a conch shell, with the roundness of a French horn, playing long, sighing notes that filled the incredible acoustic with the sonic effect of an elephant in agony.

This Sunday's concert at the National Gallery of Art (March 11, 6:30 pm) will feature Dalia Atlas as guest conductor of the National Gallery Orchestra, with pianist Ingrid Fliter. The program, presented in cooperation with the National Museum of Women in the Arts in honor of Women's History Month, includes music by Fanny Mendelssohn.

Classical Week in Washington (3/5)

Classical Week in Washington is a weekly feature that appears on Sundays, at the same time as my Classical Music Agenda for DCist. If there are concerts that you would like to see included on our schedule, send your suggestions by e-mail (ionarts at gmail dot com). Plan your winter concert schedule with our 2006 Concert Preview and Classical Month in Washington (March), or your opera listening with our Opera Preview 2006.

Tuesday, March 7, 12:10 pm
Noontime Cantata: Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101
Washington Bach Consort
Church of the Epiphany (13th and G Streets NW)

Tuesday, March 7, 12:15 pm
The Garden of Earthly Delights: Music of early centuries on historical harps [FREE]
Constance Whiteside, harp
St. George’s Episcopal Church (915 N. Oakland Street, Arlington, Va.)

Tuesday, March 7, 7:30 pm
Musicians from Marlboro II [FREE]
Beethoven's Piano and Woodwind Quintet, op. 16; Nielsen's Woodwind Quintet, op. 43; Elliott Carter's Eight Etudes and a Fantasy; and songs by Schubert from his op. 129, D. 965
Freer Gallery of Art

Wednesday, March 8, 7 and 9 pm
Turtle Island String Quartet
The Mansion at Strathmore

Wednesday, March 8, 7:30 pm
American Piano: Copland, the Piano and Politics, with various artists [FREE]
American Piano Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)

Wednesday, March 8, 7:30 pm
Sharon Isbin, guitar, with Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano
Fortas Chamber Music Series
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Thursday, March 9, 7:30 pm
American Piano: Charles Ives and the American Pianist [FREE]
Lecture on and performance of Ives's Concord Sonata (Steven Mayer)
American Piano Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
Ian Bostridge, tenor, Julius Drake, piano, and the Belcea Quartet
Fauré, "La bonne chanson," op. 61; Shostakovich, String Quartet no. 3 in F Major, op. 73; Vaughan Williams, On Wenlock Edge
Library of Congress

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
Russian National Orchestra
Stravinsky’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Excerpts from Sleeping Beauty, Stravinsky’s La baiser de la fée (“The Fairy's Kiss”), and Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3 for Orchestra in G Major, Op. 55
George Mason University Center for the Arts (Fairfax, Va.)

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
Peter Sirotin (violin), Claudia Chudacoff (violin), Michael Stepniak (viola), Julius Wirth (viola), Fiona Thompson (cello)
Mozart String Quintets I
Embassy Series
Embassy of Austria

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
St. Lawrence String Quartet
Discovery Series
Barns at Wolf Trap

Friday, March 10, 8 pm; Saturday, March 11, 8 pm; Saturday, March 12, 8 pm
Biava Quartet
Dumbarton Oaks (Friends of Music)

Saturday, March 11, 1:30 pm
Verdi, La Forza del Destino
With Deborah Voigt, Ildikó Komlósi, Salvatore Licitra, Juan Pons, and Samuel Ramey
Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast

Saturday, March 11, 4:30 pm
Boston Symphony Orchestra (with James Levine David Robertson)
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Neruda Songs
Kennedy Center Concert Hall (WPAS)

Saturday, March 11, 8 pm
Baltimore Symphony: Strauss's Ein Heldenleben and Prokofiev's second violin concerto
With Sayaka Shoji, violin
Music Center at Strathmore
[Also on March 9 and 10, 8 pm, and March 12, 3 pm, at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore]

Saturday, March 11, 8 pm
JCC Symphony Orchestra, with violinist Nicolas Kendall
Music includes Sibelius violin concerto and Finlandia, and excerpts from Smetana's Má Vlast
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)

Saturday, March 11, 8:15 pm; Wednesday, March 15, 7:30 pm; Friday, March 17, 8:15 pm; Sunday, March 19, 3 pm
Jake Heggie, Dead Man Walking
Baltimore Opera

Sunday, March 12, 3 pm
Left Bank Quartet, with pianists Larissa Dedova, Bradford Gowen, and Rita Sloan [NOT FREE]
Foote, Piano Trio in B-flat Major (1907-08); Ives: Violin Sonata No. 2 (1907-10); and Amy Beach, Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor (1908)
American Piano Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)

Sunday, March 12, 5 pm
Lina Bahn, violin [FREE, with admission to museum]
Phillips Collection

Sunday, March 12, 7:30 pm
New York Festival of Song (VAS)
Marie Lenormand (mezzo-soprano) and Hugh Russell (baritone)
Steven Blier, pianist
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Sunday, March 12, 7:30 pm
Nicolas Kendall, violin
Music by Mozart, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Kreisler, and Sarasate
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)

——» Go to the previous schedule, for the week of February 26.

A Sunday with the Contemporary Music Forum and Young Concerts Artists

Young Concert Artists

Hearing works by Benjamin C.S. Boyle more and more often and in more and more prestigious venues is very gratifying. (Although my musical tastes tend to a more modern idiom than Boyle usually delivers, the quality of the music itself and its play with traditions and contemporary influences has fascinated me ever since first hearing his Kreutzer Concert-Variations.) The Young Concert Artists’ recital at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, last Sunday, offered such an opportunity. Now in his second year as composer-in-residence for YCA, he was commissioned to write a piece for the young harp virtuoso Emmanuel Ceysson. The resulting Suite Sylvanesque adds only another work to a string of successes. Being just about the least notably modern work I have heard of Mr. Boyle’s, most of the audience would probably not have thought the Suite any younger a work than the Fauré, Ravel, Renié, or Grandjany works that were also offered by Mr. Ceysson.

Were Boyle’s Suite lulls the ears with beauty rather than piquing it with little reminders of ‘music in 2006’ – and assuming that one might consider that a shortcoming, not an asset, in the first place – it won its laurels on brevity, that most underrated but essential skill that makes a good composer. (The grand-master of brevity, Anton Webern, was present in spirit, if not at all in sound.) Five sparkling, generally gentle movements – each supplied with a short epigraph – make for music that sounded genuinely tailored to the harp and the romantic stereotype we often associate with it.

Mr. Ceysson, in his very early twenties, played this with the same flair and impeccable, impressive skill as he did the other works. During a transcription of Bach’s French Suite No. 3 BWV 814 his red-cheeked, angelic face with puckered lips ecstasy under a well cared for mop of soft, long, dark hair made that ‘romantic abandon’ impression that is especially annoying with pianists but more forgivable with the engaged, flair-burdened harpist.

Fauré’s Une chatelaine en sa tour, op.110, consisted of muted, melting tones, Marius Constant’s Harpalycé showed that the harp need not necessarily be angelic but that it can be a raw instrument, too. In Marcel Grandjany’s Rhapsody for harp and string quartet the magnificent Jupiter String Quartet was sadly underutilized. Henriette Renié’s Ballade fantastique on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” would have been just as extraordinarily effective music if one were blissfully unaware of the story (and that beating heart) that motivated it.

Ravel’s Intro & Allegro for Harp, accompanied by String Quartet and Clarinet makes no pretense of being a septet – the partners here hare decidedly not equal, especially with the String Quartet relegated to provide the orchestral carpet for the harps solo performance.

Amid all this, the prodigious technique and talent of Mr. Ceysson was in full display. The only criticism: He should not have talked at all… not introduced a work nor read the poetry that goes along with the Suite Sylvanesque. His thick accent rendered it completely incomprehensible, awkward… even embarrassing. The effect was one that detracted, rather than added to the music.

contemporary music forum

If the YCA concert was six seventh 20th century music, it still could not have been more different from the second cmf concert of the season at the Corcoran Gallery of Art where five sixths were also from the 20th century (with one piece from the 21st) but the soundscape worlds apart. The recently deceased James Tenney – unknown to most audiences but a favorite composer of Ligety’s and well respected by his colleagues Feldman, Cage, and Reich – came first with the Chromatic Cannon in the version for piano and tape (a pre-recorded piano track that would otherwise fall to a second player). An intriguing work that sounds like minimalism but hardly betrays its (loosely applied) 12-tone technique, builds slow but irresistible climaxes, and plays with different pulses running through the two piano parts. Jenny Lin, who played ‘with herself’, made the Chromatic Cannon appear a downright elegant piece.

Other Reviews: Daniel Ginsberg, Contemporary Music Forum (Washington Post, November 13)

Tom Lopez’ Underground (2004) is probably not music in the conventional sense but the soundtrack (ambient noise, crashes, rhythms, occasional tones) to a modern, curiously appealing short-film-cum-documentary on the London Underground by director Nate Pagel – a second in a planned series that plans to explore subway systems around the world. With graphics and ‘sound’ (like an industrial remix with a Moby beat) very professionally put together, the clip could as well have been screened at the Hirshhorn as a ‘video sculpture’.

Lawrence Moss’ “Korea for Kwartludium” (1999) for violin (Lina Bahn), clarinet (Kathleen Mulcahy), percussion (Svet Stoyanov), and piano (Ms. Lin) is based on the interesting concept of recreating or emulate an electronically assembled earlier composition of his (Korea). The same principle as on the “Accoustica plays Aphex Twin” CD, but with Korean folk elements, instead of Richard D. James’ brand of electronica. Interesting, but lacking: There was no sense of improvisation or spontaneity in this performance, only theatrical, self-important sound-reproduction which had its low points in the instrumentalists half-yelled ‘uuuuuhs’ and ‘ooohmms’.

Transfigured Wind IV for flute and audio fared better but could have been half as short. Carole Bean played this overlong 1985 work by Roger Reynolds (a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1988) which began with subtle piccolo interjections from the audio source which sounded like someone practicing in the room next door. The taped part became more complex, before lower, earthy flute chatter entered the ears. “Climax” is too much a word for it – but halfway through Transfigured Wind IV there came a particularly busy and pleasing passage before everything mellowed out into a bland, occasionally interrupted, modernist mélange. It did, fortunately, avoid most of the histrionics that other contemporary works for flute are prone to.

The Khan Variations by Alejandro Viñao for solo marimba were an impressive showcase for Mr. Stoyanov who proved great athleticism and musicianship alike in this Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn based musical exploration. Migrations from 1997 by Alexandra Gardner, a D.C. native, closed the concert with a wild ride for percussion/marimba and piano strings (hit directly) around flute, clarinet, cello, and the piano, more conventionally steered. There was plenty thunder but melancholy underneath; the aggressive and abrasive outbursts of the music didn’t scare even Ms. Bahn’s tiny little daughter who, after escaping her minder, progressively climbed towards her mother; reaching her just in time to take bows with the musicians. It was the most human touch of the evening.

Classical Month in Washington (March)

Last month | Next month
Classical Month in Washington is a monthly feature that appears on the first of the month. If there are concerts you would like to see included on our schedule, send your suggestions by e-mail (ionarts at gmail dot com). Happy listening!

Wednesday, March 1, 7:30 pm; March 2 and 3, 7:30 pm; March 4 and 5, 1:30 and 7:30 pm
New York City Ballet (various programs)
Kennedy Center Opera House
See the review by Sarah Kaufman (Washington Post, March 3)

Thursday, March 2, 8 pm
Baltimore Symphony: Khatchatryan’s Award-Winning Sibelius
With violinist Sergey Khatchatryan and guest conductor Andrew Constantine (replacing Yuri Temirkanov, unable to return from Russia for personal reasons)
Music Center at Strathmore
[On March 3 and 4, 8 pm, and March 5, 3 pm, at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore]
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 3)

Friday, March 3, 8 pm
Ensemble Corund (Stephen Smith, Artistic Director)
A cappella choral music on Shakespeare texts
Library of Congress
See the review by Cecelia Porter (Washington Post, March 6)

Friday, March 3, 8 pm
Parker String Quartet
Tower, Quartet "Nightfields"; Schumann, Quartet in A Minor; Mozart, C Major Quintet, K. 515 (with Roger Tapping, viola)
Corcoran Gallery of Art
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 5)

Friday, March 3, 8 pm; Saturday, March 4, 8 pm
Matthias Soucek, piano
Embassy Series
Embassy of Austria
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 8)

Friday, March 3, 8 pm; Sunday, March 5, 2 pm
Mozart, Così Fan Tutte
Directed by Joe Banno
Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia
Thomas Jefferson Community Theatre (Alexandria, Va.)
See the review by Charles T. Downey (Ionarts, March 4)

Friday, March 3, 8 pm; Saturday, March 4, 5 and 8 pm; Sunday, March 5, 2 pm
Folger Consort: Hildegard and Jaufre
Folger Shakespeare Library

Saturday, March 4, 1:30 pm
Gounod, Roméo et Juliette
With Natalie Dessay and Ramón Vargas
Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast

Saturday, March 4, 8 pm
Leslie Savoy Burrs, Vanqui
Opera in concert version
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)
See the review by Karren L. Alenier (Ionarts, March 9)

Sunday, March 5, 3 pm
Spiritus!: A Choral Celebration of the Spirit, with baritone Steven Combs
Music by Vaughan Williams, Tallis, Rutter, Finzi, and David McCullough
Free subscriber-only concert
National Presbyterian Church

Sunday, March 5, 5 pm
Alan Mandel, piano [FREE, with admission to museum]
Phillips Collection
See the review by Joan Reinthaler (Washington Post, March 8)

Tuesday, March 7, 12:10 pm
Noontime Cantata: Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101
Washington Bach Consort
Church of the Epiphany (13th and G Streets NW)

Tuesday, March 7, 12:15 pm
The Garden of Earthly Delights: Music of early centuries on historical harps [FREE]
Constance Whiteside, harp
St. George’s Episcopal Church (915 N. Oakland Street, Arlington, Va.)

Tuesday, March 7, 7:30 pm
Musicians from Marlboro II [FREE]
Beethoven's Piano and Woodwind Quintet, op. 16; Nielsen's Woodwind Quintet, op. 43; Eliot Carter's Eight Etudes and a Fantasy; and songs by Schubert from his op. 129, D. 965
Freer Gallery of Art
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 11)

Wednesday, March 8, 7 and 9 pm
Turtle Island String Quartet
The Mansion at Strathmore
See the review by Charles T. Downey (Ionarts, March 10)

Wednesday, March 8, 7:30 pm
American Piano: Copland, the Piano and Politics, with various artists [FREE]
American Piano Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)
See the review by T. L. Ponick (Washington Times, March 11)

Wednesday, March 8, 7:30 pm
Sharon Isbin, guitar, with Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano
Fortas Chamber Music Series
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Thursday, March 9, 7:30 pm
American Piano: Charles Ives and the American Pianist [FREE]
Lecture on and performance of Ives's Concord Sonata (Steven Mayer)
American Piano Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
Ian Bostridge, tenor, Julius Drake, piano, and the Belcea Quartet
Fauré, "La bonne chanson," op. 61; Shostakovich, String Quartet no. 3 in F Major, op. 73; Vaughan Williams, On Wenlock Edge
Library of Congress
See the review by Charles T. Downey (Ionarts, March 13)

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
Russian National Orchestra
Stravinsky’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Excerpts from Sleeping Beauty, Stravinsky’s La baiser de la fée (“The Fairy's Kiss”), and Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3 for Orchestra in G Major, Op. 55
George Mason University Center for the Arts (Fairfax, Va.)
See the review by Mark J. Estren (Washington Post, March 13)

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
Peter Sirotin (violin), Claudia Chudacoff (violin), Michael Stepniak (viola), Julius Wirth (viola), Fiona Thompson (cello)
Mozart String Quintets I
Embassy Series
Embassy of Austria

Friday, March 10, 8 pm
St. Lawrence String Quartet
Discovery Series
Barns at Wolf Trap
See the review by Tom Huizenga (Washington Post, March 13)

Friday, March 10, 8 pm; Saturday, March 11, 8 pm; Saturday, March 12, 8 pm
Biava Quartet
Dumbarton Oaks (Friends of Music)

Saturday, March 11, 1:30 pm
Verdi, La Forza del Destino
With Deborah Voigt, Ildikó Komlósi, Salvatore Licitra, Juan Pons, and Samuel Ramey
Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast

Saturday, March 11, 4:30 pm
Boston Symphony Orchestra (with James Levine David Robertson)
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Neruda Songs
Kennedy Center Concert Hall (WPAS)
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 12)

Saturday, March 11, 8 pm
Baltimore Symphony: Strauss's Ein Heldenleben and Prokofiev's second violin concerto
With Sayaka Shoji, violin
Music Center at Strathmore
[Also on March 9 and 10, 8 pm, and March 12, 3 pm, at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore]
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 16)

Saturday, March 11, 8 pm
JCC Symphony Orchestra, with violinist Nicolas Kendall
Music includes Sibelius violin concerto and Finlandia, and excerpts from Smetana's Má Vlast
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)

Saturday, March 11, 8:15 pm; Wednesday, March 15, 7:30 pm; Friday, March 17, 8:15 pm; Sunday, March 19, 3 pm
Jake Heggie, Dead Man Walking
Baltimore Opera
See the review by Charles T. Downey (Ionarts, March 14)

Sunday, March 12, 3 pm
Left Bank Quartet, with pianists Larissa Dedova, Bradford Gowen, and Rita Sloan [NOT FREE]
Foote, Piano Trio in B-flat Major (1907-08); Ives: Violin Sonata No. 2 (1907-10); and Amy Beach, Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor (1908)
American Piano Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)

Sunday, March 12, 5 pm
Lina Bahn, violin [FREE, with admission to museum]
Phillips Collection

Sunday, March 12, 7:30 pm
New York Festival of Song (VAS)
Marie Lenormand (mezzo-soprano) and Hugh Russell (baritone)
Steven Blier, pianist
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
See the review by Stephen Brookes (Washington Post, March 14)

Sunday, March 11, 7:30 pm
Nicolas Kendall, violin
Music by Mozart, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Kreisler, and Sarasate
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)

Tuesday, March 14, 7:30 pm
Dora Seres, flute
Young Concert Artists Series
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 19)

Tuesday, March 14, 7:30 pm (pre-concert lecture by Dr. Peter Casarella, 6:30 pm)
Manuel de Falla and the Music of Faith (music by Victoria, Soler, and de Falla)
Post-Classical Ensemble, with soprano Rosa Lamoreaux [FREE]
Virginia Theological Seminary, Lettie Pate Auditorium (3737 Seminary Road, Alexandria, Va.)

Thursday, March 16, 7 pm; Friday, March 17, 8 pm; Saturday, March 18, 8 pm
National Symphony Orchestra with Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
[Free performance by members of the NSO, Saturday, March 18, 6 pm, Millennium Stage]
See the review by Daniel Ginsberg (Washington Post, March 17)

Thursday, March 16, 8 pm; Friday, March 17, 8 pm
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Emanuel Ax, piano
Yardumian's Armenian Suite, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9, and Stravinsky's Petrouchka
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)
[Same program, without the Yardumian piece, as a Casual Concert on Saturday, March 18, 11 am]
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 17)

Thursday, March 16, to Sunday, March 19
Mozart, Così Fan Tutte
Directed by Cindy Oxberry, conducted by Kate Tamarkin
Hartke Theatre
Catholic University of America

Friday, March 17, 8 pm
Mezzo-sopranos Margaret Lattimore, Stephanie Novacek, and Mary Phillips, with flutist Eugenia Zukerman [FREE]
Song cycles of Ricky Ian Gordon and Jake Heggie (also songs by Bernstein and Sondheim)
Library of Congress

Saturday, March 18, 1:30 pm
Tchaikovsky, Mazeppa
With Olga Guryakova and Larissa Diadkova, conducted by Valery Gergiev
Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast

Saturday, March 18, 2 pm
Roberto Cominati, piano
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (WPAS)
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 21)

Saturday, March 18, 8 pm
Francis Poulenc Trio
Embassy Series
Embassy of the Republic of Poland
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 24)

Saturday, March 18, 8 pm
National Philharmonic: Famous Opera Choruses
Music Center at Strathmore

Saturday, March 18, 8 pm
Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, with cellist Zuill Bailey
George Mason University Center for the Arts (Fairfax, Va.)

Sunday, March 19, 2 pm
Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Music by Beethoven and Mozart
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
See the review by Tim Page (Washington Post, March 21)

Sunday, March 19, 3 pm
Chamber music and jazz by Washington composers, with Holly Bass, poet
Washington Musica Viva
Atlas Performing Arts Center (1333 H Street NE)

Sunday, March 19, 5 pm
Michael Sheppard, piano [FREE, with admission to museum]
Phillips Collection

Sunday, March 19, 5:30 pm
Jordi Savall with Hesperion XXI
The Paul and Barbara Krieger Early Music Concert
Shriver Hall, Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, Md.)

Sunday, March 19, 6:30 pm
Egidius Kwartet [FREE]
17th-century Dutch music for vocal quartet
National Gallery of Art

Tuesday, March 21, 8 pm
Washington Bach Consort and Cathedral Choral Society
Music of Bach, plus Orff's [yawn] Carmina Burana
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 25)

Wednesday, March 22, 7:30 pm
Sara Daneshpour, piano [FREE]
National Museum of Women in the Arts (for reservation, call 202-783-7370 or e-mail reservations@nmwa.org)

Thursday, March 23, 7 pm; Friday, March 24, 1:30 pm; Saturday, March 25, 8 pm
National Symphony Orchestra with Emanuel Ax, piano
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
See the review by Robert R. Reilly (Ionarts, March 24)

Thursday, March 23, 7:30 pm
Pedja Muzijevic (Broadwood piano) and Tanya Tompkins (cello)
Music by Hummel, Schumann, and Chopin
The Mansion at Strathmore

Thursday, March 23, 8 pm
Baltimore Symphony: Mozart's Birthday Celebration
All-Mozart program, with pianist Christian Blackshaw
Music Center at Strathmore
[Also on March 24 and 25, 8 pm, and March 26, 3 pm, at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore]
See the review by Tim Smith (Baltimore Sun, March 25)

Friday, March 24, 8 pm
Bach Collegium Japan (Maasaki Suzuki, Artistic Director) [FREE]
All-Bach program
Library of Congress
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 28)

Friday, March 24, 8 pm
Peter Sirotin (violin), Claudia Chudacoff (violin), Michael Stepniak (viola), Julius Wirth (viola), Fiona Thompson (cello)
Mozart String Quintets II
Embassy Series
Embassy of Austria
See the review by Andrew Lindemann Malone (Washington Post, March 27)

Saturday, March 25, 1:30 pm
Verdi, Luisa Miller
With Barbara Frittoli, Neil Shicoff, and James Morris
Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast

Saturday, March 25, 7 pm; Thursday, March 30, 7:30 pm; Sunday, April 2, 2 pm (four more performances through April 14)
Wagner, Das Rheingold
Washington National Opera

Saturday, March 25, 8 pm
National Philharmonic: Brahms, German Requiem
With baritone William Sharp and soprano Linda Mabbs
Music Center at Strathmore

Saturday, March 25, 8:30 pm; Sunday, March 26, 7:30 pm
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington (Rockville, Md.)

Sunday, March 26, 6:30 pm
Rachel Barton Pine, violin, and Matthew Hagle, piano
Music by Biber, Corigliano, Mozart, and Schumann
National Gallery of Art
See the review by Charles T. Downey and Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 28)

Monday, March 27, 8 pm
London Philharmonic Orchestra (Kurt Masur, music director)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall
See the review by Jens F. Laurson (Ionarts, March 30)

Wednesday, March 29, 8 pm
Murray Perahia, Peter Serkin, piano
Music Center at Strathmore (WPAS)
See the review by George A. Pieler (Ionarts, March 31)

Thursday, March 30, 6 and 7 pm
Sound artists Richard Chartier and Taylor Deupree
World premiere of a new musical work, Specification Fifteen, created especially for the Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibition
Lerner Room
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
See the review by Charles T. Downey (Ionarts, March 31)

Friday, March 31, 7:30 pm
Vadim Repin, violin, and Nikolai Lugansky, piano
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

Friday, March 31, 8 pm
Takács Quartet
Mozart, String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 “Dissonance”; Bartók, String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17; Schubert, String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810 “Death and the Maiden”
Corcoran Gallery of Art

Friday, March 31, 8 pm
Judith Bettina (soprano), Robert Taub (piano), Curtis Macomber (violin) [FREE]
Chamber Music of Milton Babbitt
Library of Congress

Friday, March 31, 8 pm
Baltimore Symphony: What Dreams Are Made Of
Sibelius, Swan of Tuonela; Stravinsky, The Firebird; Michael Daugherty, Hell's Angels
Symphony with a Twist Series
Music Center at Strathmore

Friday, March 31, 8 pm; Saturday, April 1, 5 and 8 pm; Sunday, April 2, 2 pm
Folger Consort: Landini and Machaut, with Trefoil
Folger Shakespeare Library