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Dear ,
Whether your favorite sounds come from intimate chamber ensembles, Hollywood musicals, or epic operas, our upcoming Performing Arts Programs will be music to your ears.
Featured Event: The presentation of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner’s four-opera masterpiece, is the most ambitious undertaking of all in the live performing arts. Wagner called the cycle a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art in which all the musical and theatrical elements must seamlessly merge.
Any company that endeavors to stage the cycle announces itself as a major player in the opera world. The Ring comes to Washington for three complete cycles in May with world-class musical and theatrical forces assembled by the Washington National Opera. Opera expert Fred Plotkin is joined by the company director Francesca Zambello, music director Philippe Auguin, designers, and leading singers working on the WNO’s Ring for a day-long immersion certain to fascinate those new to the cycle as well as the “Ring nuts” who travel the world to see Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung wherever they are being performed. Buy tickets>>
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Upcoming Performing Arts Programs at the Smithsonian:
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Emerson String Quartet
Evening Performance
Sun., Jan. 17 at 6 PM
Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins perform a season that displays the range and unparalleled musicianship of an ensemble that has been hailed as “the one indispensable quartet” by Newsweek.
Concert Program:
Solo recital with Lawrence Dutton, violist
With Elizabeth Lim-Dutton, violin and Michael Brown, piano
Matt Van Brink: The Heart Grows Fonder (2015; Washington, D.C. premiere)
Arvo Part: Fratres for Violin and Piano (1977, 1980)
Rebecca Clarke: Sonata for Viola and Piano (1919)
Johannes Brahms: Trio In E-flat Major, Opus 40 (1865)
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Rob Kapilow’s What Makes It Great?
Evening Performance
Sun., Jan. 24 at 6 PM
Featured Masterwork:
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 18, with musicians from Curtis Institute of Music
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Axelrod String Quartet
Second of Three Evening Performances
Sat., Jan. 23 at 7:30 PM
Sun., Jan. 24 at 7:30 PM
Following its January tradition, the Axelrod invites a promising quartet in its early career to participate in a gala, all-Stradivarius-and-Amati reading of the Mendelssohn Octet. This year’s choice is the Excelsa Quartet, the prize-winning graduate quartet-in-residence at the University of Maryland. Mendelssohn’s A Minor Quartet, based on his song Frage (“Question”), fills out the program.
Concert Program:
Haydn: Quartet in D Major, Op. 76, No. 5
Mendelssohn: Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13
Mendelssohn: Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20 (with The Excelsa Quartet: Laura Colgate and Audrey Wright, violins; Valentina Shohdy, viola; Kacy Clopton, violoncello)
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Paris: The Musical Magnet of the 19th Century
8-Session Daytime Course
Begins Tues., Feb. 2 at 12 PM
Rossini, Chopin, Verdi, Offenbach, Wagner, and Sibelius are among the composers for whom Paris was more than a destination: It was a city where careers and creativity blossomed. Lecturer Saul Lilienstein surveys the wide range of musical artists who responded to its call. Buy tickets>>
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Emerson String Quartet
Evening Performance
Sat., Feb. 6 at 6 PM
Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins perform a season that displays the range and unparalleled musicianship of an ensemble that has been hailed as “the one indispensable quartet” by Newsweek.
Concert Program:
Passing the Torch II
Haydn: Quartet in C Major, Op. 76 No. 3 (“Emperor”) (1796–97)
Beethoven: Quartet in G Major, Op. 18 No. 2 (1798–1800)
Haydn: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 76 No. 6 (1796–97)
Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18 No. 6 (1798–1800)
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A Midwinter’s Day at the Folger
All-Day Tour with Performance - SOLD OUT!
Sat., Feb. 13 at 10 AM
Sat., Feb. 27 at 10 AM
Banish the chill of the season by basking in a day of Shakespearian magic at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The distinctive Greco-Deco building holds plenty of treasures, and special tours and behind-the-scenes sessions spotlight many of them. A matinee of A Midsummer Night’s Dream captures you in its spell. Learn more>>
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Masterworks of Four Centuries
Third of Six Evening Performances
Sat., Feb. 20 at 7:30 PM
Sun., Feb. 21 at 7:30 PM
The Castle Trio returns, with friends, for two of the best-loved piano quintets in the repertoire: those of Dvorak (1887) and Brahms (1865).
Concert Program:
Dvorak: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34
The Castle Trio and Friends
Lambert Orkis, piano; Marilyn McDonald, violin; Kenneth Slowik, violoncello with Mayumi Seiler, violin, and Gregory Luce, viola
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Axelrod String Quartet
Final of Three Evening Performances
Sat., Mar. 5 at 7:30 PM
Sun., Mar. 6 at 7:30 PM
For the final concert, one of Schubert’s most intriguing early quartets is paired with his incomparable two-cello Quintet, d956. Guest cellist Norman Fischer wields the powerful 1701 “Servais” Strad for these memorable performances.
Concert Program:
Haydn: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 6
Schubert: Quartet in G Minor, d173
Schubert: Quintet in C Major, d956 (with Norman Fischer, violoncello)
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Putting on the Ring: Wagner’s Monumental Cycle
Comes to Washington National Opera
Cosponsored by Washington National Opera
All-Day Program
Sat., Mar. 12 at 9:30 AM
Washington National Opera’s director Francesca Zambello, music director Philippe Auguin, and designers and leading singers join opera expert Fred Plotkin for a day-long exploration of how the company will tackle the musical, dramatic, and technical challenges of bringing Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen to the Kennedy Center this season.
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The Hollywood Musical: Four Decades of Magic!
Part 1: The 1930s
Evening Program
Thurs., Mar. 24 at 6:45 PM
The country shook off the Depression blues—at least for an hour or two—thanks to Fred, Ginger, Judy, and hundreds and hundreds of tap-happy chorus girls. American music specialist Robert Wyatt kicks off a new series with a joyful look at the movies that sang, danced, and beguiled us when we needed it most. Buy tickets>>
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