Classical Music Agenda (July/August 2016)

Yuja Wang

Not much classical music happens in Washington in the hottest months of the year. Many locals travel to music destinations -- Santa Fe Opera is presenting Barber's Vanessa, Strauss's Capriccio, and Puccini's La Fanciulla del West -- but if you are stuck in town, here is where you can hear some good music.

ORCHESTRAS:
The National Symphony Orchestra returns to Wolf Trap for its usual summer fare, sometimes good and sometimes not. In the good category we would place the visit by Yuja Wang and Lionel Bringuier (July 8), the Firebird performance with the Handspring Puppet Company (July 23), and the Debussy-Ravel program led by conductor Stéphane Denève (July 29). Also count me in for the screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark with Emil de Cou conducting the live score (July 9).

From the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the concert led by Nicholas Hersh should be tolerable, with music by Bernstein, Bach, and Gershwin, featuring pianist Charlie Albright and other soloists (July 28).

WOLF TRAP:
Going out to Wolf Trap is almost like getting out of town, and there are some good musical events going on there this summer, starting with the visit by American Ballet Theater to perform Romeo and Juliet (July 14 to 16), including one performance starring Misty Copeland.

Wolf Trap Opera Company's second production is a rare staging of Florian Gassmann's L'Opera Seria, a 1769 farce sending up the conventions of tragic opera (July 15 to 23). It will be performed in the Barns, so no worries about the mosquitoes, heat, or rain. Grant Gershon will also lead a single staged performance of Puccini's La Bohème (August 5) with the National Symphony Orchestra in the Filene Center.

CHAMBER MUSIC:
The Washington Metropolitan Philarmonic Association is presenting a Sunday series of concerts at the Lyceum in Alexandria. Starting with a recital by pianist Christopher Schmitt (July 3) -- actually starting on June 12 -- it runs through the second week of September.

The Steinway Series has free Sunday afternoon concerts in both July and August, with the Lysander Piano Trio (July 10) and pianist Sejoon Park (August 14). Hear some music and enjoy the air conditioning in the basement auditorium of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

LAGNIAPPES:
Jonathan Pryce stars in the Shakespeare's Globe on Tour production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which comes to the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater (July 27 to 30).

Wynton Marsalis leads a concert by Jazz at Lincoln Center at Wolf Trap (August 19).

Classical Music Agenda (June 2016)

June is the official end of the concert season, although many presenters give their last concerts in May, or even April. Here are the most important performances you do not want to miss before summer vacation.

DANCE:
The Royal Swedish Ballet returns to the Kennedy Center Opera House, for the American premiere of Juliet and Romeo (June 1 to 4), a new choreography by Mats Ek. Made for the company's 240th anniversary, it is a variation on the classic Shakespeare story accompanied by various pieces of music by Tchaikovsky, rather than the later Prokofiev score.

ORCHESTRAS:
The National Symphony Orchestra has two more worthwhile programs on offer, beginning with Leila Josefowicz playing Esa-Pekka Salonen's violin concerto (June 2 to 4), in a concert also featuring Christoph Eschenbach conducting symphonies by Haydn and Robert Schumann. The Mahler season continues with contralto Nathalie Stutzmann as soloist in the composer's Rückert-Lieder, paired with Eschenbach conducting Bruckner's fourth symphony (June 9 to 11).

Up in Charm City cellist Yo-Yo Ma joins the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for a single performance of Dvořák's cello concerto (June 15) at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, unfortunately paired with the composer's over-exposed but still crowd-pleasing ninth symphony. Speaking of overdone, yet another performance of Verdi's Requiem Mass would not normally catch my attention, but Marin Alsop's performance will feature a knockout quartet of soloists including Tamara Wilson and Elizabeth Bishop (June 17 to 19).

We recommend all of the performances of the NOI Festival Orchestra, the crackerjack student ensemble that comes together each summer for the National Orchestral Institute program at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Center. Of all of them, the performance led by Osmo Vänskä (June 25) is the one not to miss, combining Nielsen's Overture to Maskarade, Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra, and Sibelius's second symphony.

VOICES:
Soprano Renée Fleming joins the Emerson String Quartet early in the month at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (June 2), for a concert combining Egon Wellesz's Five Sonnets for Soprano and String Quartet with Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, which has a part for voice in the final movement, as well as one of the Brahms string quartets.

The first production from Wolf Trap Opera will be Britten's Rape of Lucretia (June 10 to 18), an opera that is just the right scale for the Barns at Wolf Trap. The rather wonderful Kerriann Otaño will take the part of the Female Chorus.

At the end of the month the In Series will mount a scaled-down production of Beethoven's Fidelio at the Atlas Center (June 18 to 26). Nick Olcott directs his own English adaptation of the opera, which updates the story to an unnamed Central American dictatorship.

The rest of the June concert calendar will scroll through the Ionarts sidebar.

Classical Music Agenda (May 2016)

May is the month of Wagner's Ring Cycle, the first complete one staged by Washington National Opera. Wagner fanatics, like us, will be spending a lot of time in the theater. Here are the Top 10 choices, besides Wagner, for the month of May.

SOLOISTS:
The choice will be difficult on the first day of the month, but we probably fall on the side of the recital by mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and pianist Kevin Murphy (May 1, 2 pm), presented by Vocal Arts D.C. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Replacing soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, DeYoung will sing songs by Falla, Elgar, Brahms, Strauss, and Joseph Marx. Later that afternoon is the recital by pianist Murray Perahia (May 1, 4 pm), presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Music Center at Strathmore. Reason No. 1 that I would hate to miss this recital: he will play Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata.

More fireworks come later in the week with an all-Prokofiev recital by pianist Yefim Bronfman (May 3). This free concert at the Library of Congress will feature the sixth, seventh, and eighth sonatas from a leading Prokofiev interpreter.

Pianist Nelson Freire plays music by Bach (fourth partita), Beethoven (piano sonata op. 111), Shostakovich, and Chopin, in his recital at Shriver Hall in Baltimore (May 8).

The concert by violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Emanuel Ax, canceled last September because Perlman had to undergo emergency surgery, will take place this month (May 10), presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

ENSEMBLES:
Opera Bel Cantanti will give a rare performance of Mikhail Glinka's opera Ruslan and Ludmila (May 7 to 15) at the Randolph Road Theater in Silver Spring.

James MacMillan takes the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra, leading performances of Elgar's cello concerto, with soloist Alban Gerhardt, Vaughan Williams's fourth symphony, and his own piece The Sacrifice (May 12 to 14), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Two programs from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra made the cut, beginning with a concert led by John Adams, pairing his own Harmonielehre with Beethoven's fifth piano concerto with Jeremy Denk as soloist (May 12 in Baltimore; May 15 at Strathmore). John Storgårds takes the podium the following week, leading performances of Holst's The Planets, a new work by Libby Larsen, and Tan Dun's Water Concerto (May 21 at Strathmore; May 20 and 22 in Baltimore).

The talented chamber ensemble Inscape gives two concerts this month. Joined by violinist Miranda Cuckson, they will bring music back to the wonderful Hammer Auditorium at the Corcoran, with music by Douglas Boyce, Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, and Paul Moravec (May 8). The following week, in their home base at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Bethesda, they perform a more varied program with music by Bach, Wagner, Robert Moran, Steven Stucky, and Jeremy Podgursky (May 15).

The rest of the May schedule will scroll through the Ionarts sidebar.

Classical Music Agenda (April 2016)

By comparison to the previous three months, April feels a little light on major concert events. Here are our Top 10 picks for the month, which are all performances you will want to hear and see.

HISTORY:
In the lifetime of the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, which has seen so many excellent performances, none looms larger than the premiere of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring with Martha Graham's ground-breaking choreography. The Martha Graham Dance Company returns for the 90th anniversary of the Library's concert series, with three free performances including Appalachian Spring and some new works (April 1 and 2).

Opera Lafayette takes a look at operas performed during the French Revolution, with scenes from Martini's Sapho (a modern premiere), Cherubini's Médée, and Sacchini's Œdipe à Colone (April 29), presented at Lisner Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University.

Washington National Opera presents its first-ever complete Ring Cycle starting at the end of the month, with the first performance of Wagner's Das Rheingold (April 30). The hot ticket should be for the third of the three cycles, featuring Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde.

VISITORS:
Icelandic composer Anna Þorvaldsdóttir has been at the top of many critics' favorite lists in the last couple years. She will appear on the Leading International Composers Series at the Phillips Collection (April 14).


The Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, performs mostly British music in the ongoing British choir festival at Washington National Cathedral (April 3).

The Venice Baroque Orchestra, last heard in Washington in 2011, will perform two concerts at Dumbarton Oaks (April 10 and 11). Andrea Marcon will lead a program of concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, George Frideric Handel, and Pietro Locatelli.

Ionarts readers are used to our European correspondent's reports on the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The ensemble, under the baton of Mariss Jansons, will play at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (April 12), presented by Washington Performing Arts. The program combines Mahler's fifth symphony and Korngold's violin concerto, the latter with Leonidas Kavakos as soloist.

More Mahler is on the menu later that week when the San Francisco Symphony performs Das Lied von der Erde with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and tenor Simon O'Neill (April 16), also presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Michael Tilson Thomas also conducts Schubert's eighth symphony.

Beethoven, Cello Sonatas, Yo-Yo Ma, E. Ax (Sony, 1990)

CHAMBER MUSIC:
Who does not remember the set of Beethoven's cello sonatas with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax? These two artists, now more seasoned, are reunited to perform four of the sonatas, again presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (April 13). It should be a night to remember.

You know that when the Takács Quartet comes to town, Ionarts is there. The next opportunity is on the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts series (April 20), in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, and they will play music by Dvořák, Webern, and Beethoven.

If I were not going to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, I would want to hear the Esterházy Trio, presented by the Embassy Series at the Hungarian Embassy (April 12). This is a trio playing viola, cello, and baryton, the oddball string instrument favored by Prince Esterhazy, and they will play music by Haydn, Tomasini, and Abel.

The rest of the calendar will scroll through the Ionarts sidebar.

Classical Music Agenda (March 2016)

Jordi Savall

The classical music calendar for the month of March is rich indeed here in Washington. There are easily twice as many concerts as the number normally included in this monthly agenda, but after much deliberation, here are the Top 10 picks plus a couple lagniappes.

MAKE IT OLD:
Jordi Savall, conductor and humanitarian, will play his primary instrument, the viol, at a highly anticipated solo concert at the Phillips Collection (March 6). The intimate acoustic in the museum's Music Room is one of the selling points.

Keyboard specialist Andreas Staier visits the Library of Congress this month (March 9), playing the harpsichord. In this program he "contemplates the concept of melancholy in music from 17th-century France and Germany."

Ionarts favorite Rachel Barton Pine returns to the free concert series at the National Gallery of Art, playing a concert of the complete works for solo violin by J.S. Bach (March 27).

MAKE IT ORCHESTRAL:
Markus Stenz leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in an intriguing performance of Beethoven's overture and incidental music to Goethe's Egmont, with narration by Kwame Kwei-Armah (March 12 at Strathmore; March 11 and 13 in Baltimore). Lars Vogt joins as soloist for Beethoven's first piano concerto.

Conductor Kent Nagano comes to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (March 14), presented by Washington Performing Arts. The program combines two works premiered in 1913, the overplayed Rite of Spring and Debussy's often forgotten Jeux, with Daniil Trifonov providing the solo fireworks in Prokofiev's third piano concerto as entr'acte.

Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey

Washington runs the gamut of Russian pianists that week, as it turns out. Nikolai Lugansky plays the first Brahms piano concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra (March 17 to 19), while Osmo Vänskä will also conduct Beethoven's sixth symphony. Denis Matsuev joins the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Music Director Emeritus Yuri Temirkanov for Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto, plus Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony (March 17 at Strathmore; March 18 to 19 in Baltimore).

Joshua Bell continues to expand his repertory, playing a Mozart concerto with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (March 18) in the Music Center at Strathmore. Bell, who has been the ensemble's music director since 2011, also takes part in performances of some Mendelssohn pieces.

OTHER:
Another Ionarts favorite, mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, stars in the performance of Donizetti's La Favorite (March 4) by Washington Concert Opera at Lisner Auditorium. NB: This performance is on a Friday, which makes getting to the venue much more difficult than the presenter's accustomed Sunday evening time.

The Dover Quartet quickly became an Ionarts favorite, too, and will return to Washington for concerts at Dumbarton Oaks (March 6 and 7). They will play music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Caroline Shaw, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Virtuoso tenor Lawrence Brownlee returns for a Wolf Trap Opera alumnus recital with Kim Pensinger Witman at the piano (March 25) in the Barns.

PLUS DANCE:
The New York City Ballet comes to the Kennedy Center Opera House early in the month, with two different programs: modern choreographies by Balanchine, Martins, Peck, and Wheeldon (March 1, 2, and 4), and Bournonville's La Sylphide (March 3, 5, and 6).

The Washington Ballet gives the company debut of Hamlet, the choreography Stephen Mills created for Ballet Austin (March 23 to April 3) in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Mills combined sections of Glass's music from a range of pieces, including the first violin concerto, but the dancers will perform to a recording in this version.

PLUS KIDS:
Both Master Ionarts and Miss Ionarts enjoyed the kids concerts of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra when they were little, although we had to drive to Baltimore for them. The BSO presents Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, in a kids performance with Bob Brown Puppets at Strathmore (March 12).

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Music Agenda (February 2016)

February is a day longer this year, but the shortest month would have had more than enough good concerts in any case. Here are the ten we think are the most important, plus some freebies and two dance events that are must-see.

VOICES:
Opera Lafayette continues its work excavating musical rarities, with two performances of Emmanuel Chabrier's one-act opérette Une Éducation Manquée (February 2 and 3), presented in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Bernard Deletré directs the staging, with costumes by Patricia Forelle.

The French connection continues the following weekend with a rare local appearance by French soprano Sandrine Piau, in a recital with pianist Susan Manoff (February 7) at the Phillips Collection. The program will include songs by Debussy, Poulenc, Wolf, and others.

Leah Crocetto made an excellent Washington National Opera debut in Dialogues des Carmélites last season. The American soprano returns to the area for a solo recital with pianist Mark Markham (February 26), presented by WNO in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Her program will include art songs and opera arias.

Mid-month Washington Performing Arts presents the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in a program centered around Partita for 8 Voices, the piece that won its member Caroline Shaw the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. The concert, in collaboration with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, also features music by Purcell and Gavin Bryars, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue (February 13).

CHAMBER MUSIC:
The regular series by the Emerson Quartet offers a concert of quartets by Haydn and Beethoven (February 6), at the National Museum of Natural History. The program combines two quartets from the former's op. 76 and two from the latter's op. 18.

In the infancy of Ionarts, the Juilliard String Quartet, then in residency at the Library of Congress, was often reviewed in these pages. Washingtonians have gotten out of the habit of hearing the group all the time, which is now in a new formation, with Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes on violin and Roger Tapping on viola. This season will be the last for veteran cellist Joel Krosnick, who will be replaced next year by Astrid Schween, so their free concert at the Library of Congress (February 27) will be a valedictory lap. They will play quartets by Schubert, Carter, and Beethoven.

The free concert series at the National Gallery of Art is under new leadership, and the last days of February will feature an entire festival of concerts devoted to all of the instrumental trios of Beethoven (February 25 to 28). Performers featured include members of Inscape, the Mendelssohn Piano Trio, the DEKA Trio, and the North Carolina Symphony Trio, concluding with the NGA Orchestra and West Garden Trio performing Beethoven's Triple Concerto.

BLACK AND WHITE:
Pianist Jenny Lin is an Ionarts favorite, known for her ferocious technique and her daring programming choices. She plays a free concert on the Steinway series at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (February 14). Her program this time, The Composer-Pianists: The Art of Transcriptions and Arrangements, sounds right up our alley.

András Schiff has been playing the three final sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, beginning last March. We had to miss the middle installment of the series because of health issues, but the final recital should be the best (February 24), presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Music Center at Strathmore.

We are fans of Steven Osborne's recordings, so it is easy to recommend the British pianist's next recital at the Phillips Collection (February 28). The program includes Schubert (Impromptus), Debussy, and Rachmaninoff (Études-Tableaux).

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin headlines the concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra, presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (February 15). In addition to Liszt's first piano concerto, Iván Fischer will conduct Weber's overture to Der Freischütz and Prokofiev's fifth symphony.

DANCE:
We never miss the chance to see the Mark Morris Dance Group, which returns to the GMU Center for the Arts this month (February 19 and 20). The program features The (Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1), Whelm (Debussy piano pieces), and Cargo (Milhaud's La Création du Monde), all but the last new to the Washington area.

The annual visit by the Mariinsky Ballet features something a little bit unusual, Marius Petipa's choreography, with revisions by Konstantin Sergeyev, to Glazunov's Raymonda (February 23 to 28), in the Kennedy Center Opera House.


See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Music Agenda (January 2016)

Bass viol by Barak Norman, 1692 Metropolitan Museum of Art

The New Year is just around the corner, so it is not too early to start planning your concert schedule. Here are our Top Ten concert picks for the month of January.

EARLY MUSIC:
Some of the most beautiful music you have likely never heard was composed for the viol consort, a set of instruments rarely heard anymore. In its first concerts of the year, the Smithsonian Consort of Viols will perform music for the combination by John Dowland and William Lawes (January 9 and 10), in the unusual setting of the Smithsonian Castle National Museum of American History.

One of Europe's leading historically informed performance ensembles, Europa Galante, comes to Baltimore's Shriver Hall with their leader, violinist Fabio Biondi (January 17). They will perform their intriguing Diario di Chiara program, already reviewed on disc.

The Folger Consort's New Year concerts at Washington National Cathedral are pushed later into the month this year. The group shares the stage with Stile Antico and Arcadia Viols in a program marking the 500th anniversary of Shakespeare's death (January 22 and 23).

ORCHESTRAS:
The National Symphony Orchestra's parade of guest conductors continues in the New Year, with an appearance by Neeme Järvi, who will conduct Sibelius's second symphony and Eller's Five Pieces for String Orchestra. Violinist Baiba Skride joins for Prokofiev's first violin concerto (January 14 to 16).

Jakub Hrůša conducts the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in an unusual combination of Janáček's Jealousy and Brahms's fourth symphony, plus violinist Sergey Khachatryan in the Sibelius violin concerto (January 30 at Strathmore; January 29 and 31 in Baltimore).

Washington Performing Arts presents the Orchestre National de France, with Daniele Gatti at the podium for Dutilleux's Métaboles and Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony, plus Julian Rachlin as soloist in Shostakovich's first violin concerto (January 31), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Bach, Sacred Arias and Cantatas, D. Daniels, English Concert, H. Bicket (Virgin Classics, 2008)

CHAMBER MUSIC:
Washingtonians should take advantage of opportunities to hear pianist Brian Ganz. The next one is a solo recital of Chopin, the latest in the series sponsored by the National Philharmonic in the Music Center at Strathmore (January 9).

A cancellation by bass Alexander Tsymbalyuk on the series of Vocal Arts D.C. yielded an unexpected upgrade, a concert by countertenor David Daniels and pianist Martin Katz in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (January 31). Music by Purcell, Handel, Brahms, Hahn, and Vaughn Williams will be featured.

The Arditti Quartet returns to Washington on the same day, with a concert at the Phillips Collection (January 31). The program includes the Washington premiere of Pascal Dusapin's Quatour V (2004–2005).

DANCE:
The first major visit of the ballet season is American Ballet Theater's production of the historically renewed version of The Sleeping Beauty by Alexei Ratmansky, which will take over the Kennedy Center Opera House at the end of the month (January 27 to 31). The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra provides the sounds of Tchaikovsky's score.

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Music Agenda (December 2015)

Ah, December -- 'tis the season for all my holiday concert and Messiah-boredom snark! The Christmas Concert-Messiah-Nutcracker-holiday children's opera business is the bread and butter of every working musician, so long may they reign. Those few such concerts in the Washington area that can actually make this Grinch's heart grow three sizes compete every year for the coveted Ionarts Sugar Plum Award. After a few choices that have nothing to do with holiday spirit follows a list of the leading Yuletide contenders.

HO HO NO:
The Yannick Nézet-Séguin era continues at the Philadelphia Orchestra, presented yet again by Washington Performing Arts, this time at Strathmore (December 7). Bizet's Carmen Suite and Stravinsky's Firebird seem ho-hum, but violinist Hilary Hahn will also be in tow to play Vieuxtemps's fourth violin concerto.

Compare the Philadelphia sound with the hometown band when Sarah Hicks makes her conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra (December 3 and 5), leading an unusual selection of music by Copland, Mason Bates, John Adams, and Creston. Organist Cameron Carpenter, who can be relied on for a show, joins for Barber's Toccata Festiva and some improvisations on the Kennedy Center Concert Hall organ.

It has been over a decade since we have reviewed cellist Mischa Maisky live in the area. We may have to make the trip to Charm City for his recital with daughter Lily Maisky at Shriver Hall (December 6).

Closer to home, there will be string quartets to keep our hearts warm: the Schumann Quartett (December 6) and the Escher Quartet (December 20) will perform on the wonderful Sunday series at the Phillips Collection. The seasonal joy of celebrating the Stradivari Anniversary will fall to the Borromeo Quartet (December 18) on the free series at the Library of Congress.

David Lang, The Little Match Girl Passion (inter alia), Theater of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen, P. Hillier (re-released on June 9, 2009) Harmonia Mundi HMU 807496 [REVIEW]

CHRISTMAS, HOLD THE CHESTNUTS:
In general, the older you go with the Christmas music, the better. Put the appearance by the Tallis Scholars on the Fortas Chamber Music series at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater at the top of your list (December 3), with music by Renaissance composers John Sheppard and Thomas Tallis. Hopefully, the German chamber choir Calmus will sing something similarly old for their Christmas concert in the Barns at Wolf Trap (December 6).

The most unusual combination of holiday music goes to the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Singers, which will perform David Lang's extraordinary Little Match Girl Passion, interwoven with sections of Tchaikovsky's music for The Nutcracker (December 4).

Miss Ionarts will likely be quite busy taking in the various holiday operas for children this month. The In Series presents a new English version of Mozart's Bastien and Bastienne (December 5 to 13) at Source Theater, with a holiday sing-along grafted onto it. Cantate Chamber Singers perform Benjamin Britten's The Company of Heaven at the heart of an angel-centered program (December 5) at St. John’s Norwood Parish. Stagger your weekends to take in Opera Bel Cantanti's production of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, at Bethesda's Concord-Saint Andrews United Methodist Church (December 5, 12, and 19). Last but not least, Washington National Opera returns to basics after two holiday opera flops in 2013 and 2014, with the evergreen Hansel and Gretel of Engelbert Humperdinck, presented at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (December 12 to 20).

Start the month off with two free performances on December 1. The Washington Bach Consort performs Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (BWV 190, composed for New Year's Day) on its Noontime Cantata Series at Church of the Epiphany. That evening the U.S. Air Force Band presents its Holiday Concert in the Music Center at Strathmore.

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Month in Washington (November 2015)

November is just as chock full of good concerts as October, so Washingtonians have to make some difficult choices. While there are more than ten options in this month's picks, many of them conflict on the calendar. I have listed them all, and readers will have to choose.

KEYBOARD:
Several big names are coming to the venues of the Washington area this month, beginning with Maurizio Pollini, who will play a recital in the Music Center at Strathmore (November 1, 2 pm). Pollini has, for some reason, fallen off the roster of Washington Performing Arts, but he is still coming to the area, most recently in 2013, thanks to the folks at Strathmore. [Pollini has canceled this concert.] On the same day, Russian pianist Vladimir Feltsman returns, for a recital at JCCGW in Rockville. Feltsman, too, was once on the Washington Performing Arts roster, but no more.

Washington Performing Arts is bringing back Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes for a recital in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (November 14, 7 pm), a welcome return after his 2012 recital. One of the more exciting concerts on the season at the Phillips Collection is a recital by fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout (November 29, 4 pm). We have consistently loved his recordings and live performances.

Mahler, Symphony No. 3, A. S. von Otter, Vienna Philharmonic, P. Boulez

NATIONAL SYMPHONY:
The National Symphony Orchestra has a banner month, beginning with Christoph Eschenbach leading a performance of Mahler's third symphony, with Anne Sofie von Otter as mezzo-soprano soloist (November 5 to 7). The Choral Arts Society of Washington and Children's Chorus of Washington will also be featured. The speculation about who might succeed Eschenbach as NSO music director continues later in the month when eminent Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek takes the podium (November 19 to 21). The program has a Czech orientation, with Mozart's "Prague" symphony and Bohuslav Martinů's sixth symphony, plus pianist Igor Levit, who had to cancel his local debut this past May, as soloist in Beethoven's fifth piano concerto.

OPERA:
Choices abound for the operatically inclined, beginning with a rare production of Kurt Weill's Street Scene, a memorable piece with lyrics by Langston Hughes, presented by Lyric Opera Baltimore at the Modell Center in Charm City (November 13 and 15). On the same weekend, Washington National Opera opens a short run of the new version of Philip Glass's opera Appomattox at the Kennedy Center Opera House (November 14 to 22). Dennis Russell Davies Dante Santiago Anzolini will conduct an excellent cast starring David Pittsinger, Richard Paul Fink, Soloman Howard, and Melody Moore.

For earlier opera, there are two concert performances that should be worth your time. Washington Concert Opera opens its season with Rossini's Semiramide at Lisner Auditorium (November 22, 6 pm). Along with some singers making their WCO debuts, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux will sing the role of Arsace. The following weekend, Opera Lafayette will perform Vivaldi's Catone in Utica (November 28 and 29), which Ryan Brown conducted at Glimmerglass this summer. Alan Curtis's recording used a reconstruction of the missing first act, but Glimmerglass performed only the second and third acts.

Matthias Pintscher

CHAMBER:
The Carducci Quartet will perform all fifteen of Shostakovich's string quartets at the Phillips Collection, over two consecutive Sundays (November 15 and 22, 4 pm). It's not as intense as performing them all in a single day, as they did in London earlier this month, but it will still be a tour de force. Unfortunately, the Takács Quartet will be playing at the same time as the first of those concerts, at Baltimore's Shriver Hall (November 15, 5:30 pm), including music by Haydn, Dvořák, and a new work by Timo Andres called Strong Language.

OTHER:
If you remember the dead in the month of November, there is a beautiful way to start, when Chantry performs Victoria's complete six-voice Office of the Dead, including the Requiem Mass and two funerary motets, in the gorgeous acoustic of St. Mary, Mother of God, in Chinatown (November 1, 3 pm).

Two concerts at the Library of Congress already made our Top 25 season preview. First, Bach Collegium Japan performs music by Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel with soprano Joanne Lunn (November 4, 8 pm). Then Matthias Pintscher, another possibility for the NSO music director position, comes back to Washington with France's renowned Ensemble Intercontemporain, performing the world premiere of a new work for violin and piano by composer Hannah Lash, Varèse's Octandre, Pintscher's Profiles of Light, Ligeti's Chamber Concerto for 13 instrumentalists, and Berg's Chamber Concerto for piano, violin, and 13 winds (November 13, 7:30 pm).

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Month in Washington (October 2015)

October is a banner month for the new classical music season, with six performances already selected for my Top 25 Season Preview. Some other concerts just missed the cut for the year, but here are the ten performances you will not want to miss in October.

KEYBOARD:
Pianist Marc-André Hamelin is an Ionarts favorite. For his latest recital, at the Clarice Smith Center, he will play music by Feinberg, Medtner, and Liszt (October 4, 3 pm).

Pianist András Schiff is undertaking an interesting Last Sonatas cycle. Washington Performing Arts presents the second installment, with the penultimate sonatas by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven, in the Music Center at Strathmore (October 26, 8 pm).

Any calendar year with two recitals by Evgeny Kissin is a good year for Ionarts. Washington Performing Arts brings the Russian pianist to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for a recital of music by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Albeniz, and Larregla (October 28, 8 pm).

OPERA:
This is also a month with several operatic rarities to see, beginning with a concert performance of Wagner's Rienzi by the National Philharmonic, in the Music Center at Strathmore. Piotr Gajewski conducts a cast starring tenor Issachah Savage in the title role (October 3, 8 pm).

Virginia Opera opens its season with Offenbach's goofy Orpheus in the Underworld, in an English-language production that comes to the GMU Center for the Arts early in the month (October 3 and 4).

Cantate Chamber Singers revive their winning production of Benjamin Britten's mystery play Noye's Fludde, the delightful one-act mini-opera featured to such brilliant effect in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (pictured at left). At the first performance, Bowen McCauley Dance will also perform Gian Carlo Menotti’s ballet The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore, and both will take place at St. Columba's Episcopal Church (October 17 and 18). This ensemble's Web site has not been updated from last year. Sorry!

The In Series will mount a rare production of Aaron Copland's opera The Tender Land, in its home at GALA Hispanic Theater (October 17 to 25). Not many details to report yet, but worth hearing.

OTHER:
The National Symphony Orchestra opens its subscription season with a program of Mozart (the overture to Magic Flute), Elgar (Serenade for Strings and Enigma Variations), and Strauss (Four Last Songs). The primary reason to hear this is not soprano Olga Peretyatko as soloist in the Strauss, although she is a singer we want to hear, but because Donald Runnicles will be at the podium. He is a fine conductor, and his commitment as music director of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra ends in 2016. The NSO, let us not forget, is looking for a successor to Christoph Eschenbach, and Runnicles might be a possibility, if experience wins out over youth (October 1 to 3).

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is also one of the singers you want to hear right now, and she gives a recital for Vocal Arts D.C. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (October 15, 7 pm).

Cellist Steven Isserlis plays on wound-gut strings, not always to the best effect in later music. His recital with fortepianist Robert Levin, playing an all-Beethoven program, should be top-notch when presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (October 29). (This concert is already sold out, so it does not really count as a recommendation.) [Tickets remain for this concert. -- Ed.]

Composer Meredith Monk has appeared in the Washington suburbs a couple of times in recent years. Any performance of hers is worth hearing, and her concert with her vocal ensemble at the Library of Congress will also be free (October 30).

Also at the Library of Congress and also free are concerts by the contemporary music ensemble yarn|wire, performing music of Luciano Berio (October 10, 8 pm), and by the esteemed Pavel Haas Quartet, playing music by Martinů and Dvořák (October 23, 8 pm).

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Month in Washington (September 2015)

Fall is around the corner, so we have already made our Top 25 Picks for the classical music season, a year of many significant anniversaries for concert presenters. In each month, though, there are many performances we could not include in the season preview. Here are a few options that look to be intriguing for the month of September.

Violinist Lana Trotovšek

Last September's concert by Lana Trotovšek was a season highlight. The Slovenian violinist returns for a recital with pianist Anna Shelest at the Embassy of Slovenia, sponsored by the Embassy Series (September 11, 7:30 pm).

Vocal Arts D.C. celebrates its 25th anniversary by opening its season with a recital by mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and pianist Jake Heggie in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. She will sing Iconic Legacies, a new song cycle by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, plus music by Schumann, Berlioz, Bachelet, and Hahn. Note the new start time for Vocal Arts events this year (September 12, 7 pm).

The Tuesday free concert series at the Church of the Epiphany is going full guns this month. The recital of lute songs by alto Barbara Hollinshead and lutenist Howard Bass should be a good one (September 15, 12:10 pm).

The season-opening galas of the area's symphony orchestras are to be avoided, if listening is your focus. The first subscription concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, however, should be worth hearing, with Anna Clyne's Masquerade and Strauss's Alpine Symphony. Olga Kern joins as soloist in Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (September 17, 8 pm at Strathmore; September 18 and 19 at the Meyerhoff).

The following weekend the BSO debuts its new contemporary series, Pulse. It's the flavor of the month for area concert presenters, combining classical music somehow with indie rock or whatnot. The stuff that comes early in the evening is not of much interest to us, but it concludes with the BSO performing Philip Glass's third symphony at the Meyerhoff (September 24, 8 pm). Later that same weekend, the BSO performs a program of Prokofiev, Glazunov (the violin concerto with concertmaster Jonathan Carney as soloist), and Beethoven, with Juanjo Mena as guest conductor (September 26, 8 pm at Strathmore; September 25 and 27 at the Meyerhoff).

Music by Jenny Olivia Johnson, Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, Armando Bayolo, and other living composers will be on the program for the Great Noise Ensemble's season opener at the Atlas Center (September 19, 8 pm).

Another anniversary celebrated this year is fifty years of the concert series at Baltimore's Shriver Hall. Pianist Yefim Bronfman kicks things off with a recital of music by Prokofiev and Schumann (September 20, 5:30 pm).

Washington Performing Arts opens its season with a recital by two golden oldies, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Emanuel Ax, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (September 28, 7 pm).

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Washington Season Preview, 2015-2016

Donald Runnicles

Almost nothing is happening now as far as classical music in Washington. Fall is just around the corner, and with it more concerts than one person can ever attend. (Trust me: this comes from personal experience.) At the end of every summer, Ionarts offers you a season preview for the upcoming year: what are the twenty-five concerts we think everyone should most want to attend? It was an exceptionally tough selection this year, because on the first run through all the announcements, there were sixty-some performances that seemed unmissable. Here it is, though, whittled down to be extra-selective: so save the date and arrange your budget accordingly.

OCTOBER:
1. The National Symphony Orchestra opens its subscription season with a program of Mozart (the overture to Magic Flute), Elgar (Serenade for Strings and Enigma Variations), and Strauss (Four Last Songs). The primary reason is not soprano Olga Peretyatko as soloist in the Strauss, although she is a singer we want to hear, but because Donald Runnicles will be at the podium. He is a fine conductor, and his commitment as music director of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra ends in 2016. The NSO, let us not forget, is looking for a successor to Christoph Eschenbach, and Runnicles might be a possibility, if experience wins out over youth (October 1 to 3).

2. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is one of the singers you want to hear right now, and she gives a recital for Vocal Arts D.C. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (October 15).

3. Pianist András Schiff is undertaking an interesting Last Sonatas cycle. Washington Performing Arts presents the second installment (October 26) and third installment (February 24) in the Music Center at Strathmore.

4. Any calendar year with two recitals by Evgeny Kissin is a good year for Ionarts. Washington Performing Arts brings the Russian pianist to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for a recital of music by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Albeniz, and Larregla (October 28).

5. Cellist Steven Isserlis plays on gut strings, not always to the best effect in later music. His recital with fortepianist Robert Levin, playing an all-Beethoven program, should be top-notch when presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (October 29).

6. Composer Meredith Monk has appeared in the Washington suburbs a couple of times in recent years. Any performance of hers is worth hearing, and her concert with her vocal ensemble at the Library of Congress will also be free (October 30).

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Classical Month in Washington (July/August 2015)

Precious little is going on in classical music in the months of July and August. If you are going to stay in the city, there a few good choices, and for those who want to travel, even more.

IN THE AREA:
The two opera festivals in the area both have some interesting productions. The Castleton Festival, just one year after the loss of founding spirit Lorin Maazel, has put up a season, but a reduced one. They will stage two operas, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette (July 3, 5, 10, 18) and Ravel's L'heure espagnole on a double-bill with something called Scalia/Ginsburg (July 11, 17, 19), and Fabio Luisi will conduct the Castleton Festival Orchestra in something (July 19).

Much closer and more interesting is the rest of the season from Wolf Trap Opera, beginning with a rare and highly improbable stab at John Corigliano's sprawling and rewarding The Ghosts of Versailles (July 10, 12, 15, 18) in the Barns, plus a single performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly with amplification and mosquitoes in the Filene Center (August 7).

The biggest area opera event of the summer, though, is the concert performance of Verdi's Aida (July 24), with a cast featuring Marjorie Owens, Carl Tanner, and Michelle DeYoung joining the National Symphony Orchestra. The NSO will play a couple of other concerts at Wolf Trap, as it does every summer, but none come close to this event.

If you are starved for a piano recital, we do recommend the free recital by Sara Daneshpour at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (July 12). So far the program will include Chopin’s second sonata and Prokofiev’s seventh sonata, which is already a handful or two, but Daneshpour is up for the challenge.

FARTHER AFIELD:
Our favorite American summer opera destination, Santa Fe Opera, has quite a season on offer this year, on which we will have a full report in early August. Yes, there is Strauss -- Salome, with David Robertson conducting Alex Penda in the title role -- and Mozart's La finta giardiniera, starring Heidi Stober and Susanna Phillips. In the new opera slot, we have the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon's Cold Mountain, and for the more traditionally minded, Verdi's Rigoletto, starring Bryan Hymel and Georgia Jarman, and Donizetti's Daughter of the Regiment, with Speranza Scappucci conducting.

A trip to Glimmerglass could be in order this year, with productions of Verdi's Macbeth (starring Eric Owens, Soloman Howard, and Melody Moore) and Vivaldi's Cato in Utica (with Opera Lafayette's Ryan Brown conducting), although the latter does not seem likely to be in the class of the staging of Lully's Armide we saw there in 2012. Then again, it seems a shame to make the long trip to Cooperstown only for two operas.

It is sad that Seattle Opera is not presenting its Ring cycle again this summer, but the cast in their production of Verdi's Nabucco (August 8 to 22) -- Mary Elizabeth Williams, Jamie Barton, and Russell Thomas -- might make it worth your while.

This could be the year for a trip to Bard Summerscape, which is presenting a rare production of Ethel Smythe's opera The Wreckers (July 24 and 26, August 2). In August, the Tanglewood Festival is offering some interesting concerts, including an all-star performance of Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand, with Andris Nelsons conducting Erin Wall, Christine Goerke, Klaus Florian Voigt, and Matthias Goerne (August 8), and some Italian opera excerpts with soprano Kristine Opolais (August 15).

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Month in Washington (June 2015)

Most of the classical music presenters give their last concerts in May, but there are a few good things to hear in the month of June.

A fine season of visiting ballet companies at the Kennedy Center comes to a close with the week of performances by Great Britain's Royal Ballet, which brings its Acosta/Petipa choreography of Don Quixote to the Kennedy Center Opera House (June 9 to 14).

The first production of the summer from Wolf Trap Opera will be Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, a nice match for the intimate Barns theater (June 12 to 20).

The National Symphony Orchestra also plays summer concerts at Wolf Trap, in the big outdoor Filene Center, and the one with conductor Andrew Litton and pianist Emanuel Ax (playing the second Brahms piano concerto) looks quite good (June 21).

Who knows if the repertory will be any good, but a chance to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir live, without having to go to Utah, is probably worth it when they come to the Music Center at Strathmore (June 25).

All of the performances of the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland, featuring a crop of dedicated young musicians, will be of interest, especially this concert by the NOI Festival Orchestra (June 27) at the Clarice Smith Center, featuring Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.

The free concert series at the Church of the Epiphany comes to a close at the end of the month with a concert of madrigals and motets by Claudio Monteverdi by the vocal ensemble Magnificat (June 30, 12:10 pm), directed by Philip Cave.

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Classical Music Agenda (May 2015)

With the arrival of May, the classical music season draws near its end. Although some organizers have already closed up shop by this point, here are the Top 10 performances worth hearing in May.

Sibelius, Violin Concerto (both versions), L. Kavakos, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, O. Vänskä (BIS, 1992)

KAVAKOS:
Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos will have a brief residency with the National Symphony Orchestra in May. He will begin it as a concerto soloist, performing the Sibelius violin concerto with the NSO (May 7 to 9), with Christoph Eschenbach also conducting Mahler's fifth symphony. Next he will take the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater's stage as recitalist, in a concert with Christoph Eschenbach at the piano (May 11, repertoire not yet announced). Finally, he will take the podium of the NSO and conduct works by Musorgsky and Sibelius, as well as playing the solo in Bach's A minor violin concerto (May 14 to 16).

VOICES:
Take your pick of mezzo-sopranos Isabel Leonard and Tara Erraught, who will alternate in the title role of Rossini's La Cenerentola, a delightful corker of a comic opera in a production by Spanish director Joan Font and his troupe Els Comediants (May 9 to 21) at Washington National Opera.

We raved about soprano Heidi Melton in a Wagner program with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2013. She returns to sing Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs with the BSO in May, along with guest conductor Markus Stenz leading performances of music by Weber and Schumann (May 21 and 22 in Baltimore; May 23 at Strathmore).

Opera Lafayette gives a staged performance of André Grétry's L'Épreuve Villageoise, from 1784, in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (May 30). Pascale Beaudin and Emmanuelle de Negri each take a turn at the role of Denise.

Bach, Partitas, I. Levit (Sony, 2014)

KEYBOARD:
Washington Performing Arts presents two pianists who should be on your radar, both in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Igor Levit will play an afternoon recital with music of Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven, plus Ronald Stevenson's Fantasy on Peter Grimes (May 9). The following day, English pianist Paul Lewis has his turn, playing the last three sonatas of Beethoven (May 10).

In the same week, the National Symphony Orchestra presents French organist Thierry Escaich in a recital on the Kennedy Center Concert Hall's organ (May 13). He plays music by Vierne, Bach, and Stravinsky, as well as his own compositions and, even better, improvisations.

CHAMBER MUSIC:
Pro Musica Hebraica presents the ARC Ensemble in a concert called Before The Night: Jewish Classical Masterpieces of Pre-1933 Europe in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (May 7). The program includes music by Jerzy Fitelberg (String Quartet No. 2, 1928), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Piano Quintet No. 1, 1931–32), and Erich Korngold (Suite for 2 violins, cello, and piano, left hand, 1930).

You will want to hear the new piano trio by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, performed on a free concert by violinist Jennifer Koh, cellist Anssi Karttunen, and pianist Benjamin Hochman (May 22) at the Library of Congress. The three musicians, in various combinations, will also play other music by Saariaho, Ravel, and Debussy.

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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Kennedy Center Announces New Season

The Kennedy Center has a shiny new Web site to go with its new president. Earlier this week, Washington's leading cultural institution announced its new season, marked by a desperate, rather pathetic grab for more popular programming, but there is relatively little new of interest to readers of Ionarts.

For this Wagnerian at least, top billing goes to the long-awaited debut of Washington National Opera's first complete staging of the Ring cycle (April 30 to May 22, 2016). We have already reviewed three of the four operas in Francesca Zambello's American-themed staging, but the chance to see the whole cycle with Philippe Auguin at the podium and, as Brünnhilde, Catherine Foster (Cycles I and II) and Nina Stemme (Cycle III) makes this the highlight of the season to come. If you need to find me during that month, I will probably be in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Adding the premiere of a major revision of Philip Glass's Appomattox is another positive, while the Return of the Musical, with the Lost in the Stars I found so tedious at Glimmerglass, is a decided negative.

The National Symphony Orchestra's season has a few high points, starting with Donald Runnicles at the podium and soprano Olga Peretyatko singing Strauss's Four Last Songs (October 1 to 3); Christoph Eschenbach conducting Mahler's third symphony, with Anne Sofie von Otter as soloist (November 5 to 7); and Jiří Bělohlávek leading Martinů's sixth symphony, plus Igor Levit as soloist in Beethoven's fifth piano concerto (November 19 to 21). Interesting world premieres include Tobias Picker's Concerto for Orchestra (March 10 to 12, 2016) and Sean Shepherd's violin concerto (June 2 to 4, 2016). The speculation about the successor to Christoph Eschenbach will continue, something that will increase with each guest conductor's appearance.

On the Fortas Chamber Music series, we look forward to the Tallis Scholars (December 3), eighth blackbird (March 7, 2016), and the Takács Quartet (April 20, 2016) -- dotted amid a bunch of crossover acts that do not interest us. On the theater season, Belgium's Ivo van Hove will direct a production of Sophocles's Antigone, starring Juliette Binoche (October 22 to 25). The ballet season will feature visits from the Joffrey Ballet (Nutcracker), the National Ballet of Canada (The Winter's Tale), American Ballet Theater (The Sleeping Beauty), the Mariinsky Ballet (Raymonda), New York City Ballet, and the Royal Swedish Ballet (Juliet and Romeo). Contemporary dance is also heavy on the usual suspects: Alvin Ailey, Ronald K. Brown, Paul Taylor, plus the 50th anniversary of Twyla Tharp's company (November 11 to 14).

Beyond these highlights, it looks like Ionarts will be reporting somewhat less from the Kennedy Center next season.

Classical Month in Washington (April 2015)

There is so much good music to be heard in the month of April: here are the ten performances at the top of our list, plus one.

ORCHESTRAS:
Krzysztof Urbanski takes the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra for an all-Russian program, combining Shostakovich's tenth symphony with Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto, featuring Daniil Trifonov as soloist (April 2 to 4).

A couple of good programs from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this month, too, including flutist Adam Walker in the East Coast premiere of the new flute concerto by Kevin Puts (April 9 and 12).

One of the top picks for the whole season happens in April, when John Eliot Gardiner leads the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, presented by Washington Performing Arts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (April 21).

KEYBOARD:
Washington Performing Arts presents the local recital debut of British pianist Stephen Hough, playing music by Chopin and Debussy, at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (April 1). At least one thing has remained constant in the upheaval at Washington Performing Arts, and that is the biennial recital by Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin, this year presented in the Music Center at Strathmore (April 22). His program this year is centered on Prokofiev's fourth sonata, plus some Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt.

Handel, "Great" Harpsichord Suites (vol. 1, 1720), J. Vinikour (Delos, 2009)

One of the harpsichordists we most want to hear these days, Jory Vinikour, gets his turn in a free concert at the Library of Congress (April 25), in a program that includes two of the Handel suites he has recorded so beautifully.

Rounding out the keyboard category, go hear one of the best organists in the world, Olivier Latry from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, when he plays a recital at St. John's Episcopal, Georgetown (April 28).

CHAMBER MUSIC:
Pianists Katherine Chi and Aleksandar Madžar perform Stockhausen's Mantra, with percussion and electronics, in a free concert at the Library of Congress (April 24).

Rounding out the year's British Choir Festival, the Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, London performs at Washington National Cathedral (April 26).

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke performs songs by Schubert, Copland, and Wolf with the Miró String Quartet, plus some movements for string quartet, on the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts series at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (April 29).

EXTRA:
I moved to Washington to pursue a doctorate at the Catholic University of America, and although most of the professors I worked with there in the 1990s have retired, the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music still has a special place in my heart. That institution is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year of being a school of music, and the festivities include a commissioning project, on the theme of the Stations of the Cross, which will be performed later this month (February 20, at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda). In April, CUA musicians will mark the anniversary with a big concert in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (April 12).

See the complete calendar after the jump.

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