All upcoming Music & Theater programs

Film historian Max Alvarez leads a perfect pre-Halloween evening: a nerve-shattering romp through the history of “creature features” spotlighting the screen’s most memorable monsters, mummies, werewolves, oversized insects, outer-space invaders, and aquatic predators—and the behind-the-scenes masterminds who brought them to life from the 1930s to today. It’s a guaranteed treat for fans of the Monsterverse.

The 48th season of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society features musical masterpieces from the late-16th to the early 21st century, played on some of the world’s most highly prized musical instruments in a 6-concert series held mostly on Saturdays. This concert features music of Orlando Gibbons and Wililam Byrd with the Smithsonian Consort of Viols.

The 48th season of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society features musical masterpieces from the late-16th to the early 21st century, played on some of the world’s most highly prized musical instruments in a 6-concert series held on Sundays. This concert features music of Orlando Gibbons and Wililam Byrd with the Smithsonian Consort of Viols.

After teenagers responded with wild enthusiasm to hearing “Rock Around the Clock” in Blackboard Jungle in 1955, Hollywood began to recognize the power of the teen audience. A flood of films featuring musicians performing rock and R&B hits and plots about rebellious high schoolers, daredevil hot-rodders, and antics-prone college students followed. Media historian Brian Rose looks at rock movies’ first decade and how Hollywood benefited from the power of the music and its target audience.

George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is a work of triumphant joy, born in an age of anxiety: Britain in the early 18th century, a time of war, political conspiracy, enslavement, and conflicts over everything from the legitimacy of government to the meaning of truth. Historian Charles King draws on his new book, Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel’s Messiah, to unearth the backstory to a beloved classic and the tortured lives and times that made a musical monument to hope.

Many film scholars argue that the 1970s were the greatest decade of film, focusing on the mavericks of “New Hollywood” such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. But Washington City Paper film critic Noah Gittell argues that this handful of filmmakers represents an incomplete snapshot of the era and looks beyond them to find a decade of dazzling variety that included Hal Ashby, Elaine May, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, and Gordon Parks.

Throughout his six-decade career, the enigmatic, supremely sophisticated, and dazzlingly Noël Coward (aka “The Master”) achieved wild success in every creative area he touched: composing, writing, directing, acting, cabaret performance, and even painting. Pianist and popular speaker Rachel Franklin leads a joyful excursion through some fabulous Cowardly classics including his play Blithe Spirit, songs such as “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” and movies such as In Which We Serve and The Italian Job.

The boldly passionate musical and dance form of flamenco casts it spell over aficionados around the world. But new fans might find some of its distinctive features puzzling. Flamenco scholar Nancy G. Heller introduces the basic elements and vocabulary of traditional flamenco music and dance, demystifying and enhancing the experience for audiences. She also traces the innovations explored by its avant-garde performers in the 21st century.

While the “New Hollywood” filmmakers of the early 1970s shook up the studio system with pessimistic counterculture films, the nostalgic director Peter Bogdanovich emulated studio productions and legendary Hollywood directors of a bygone era. When his smash hits The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon were followed by a string of critical and commercial failures, journalists and industry rivals went into destructive overdrive to cut the boy wonder down to size. Film historian Max Alvarez argues against Bogdanovich’s so-called decline after Paper Moon and presents bountiful evidence of the stylistic and narrative skill reflected throughout the career of this outstanding filmmaker.

The 48th season of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society features musical masterpieces from the late-16th to the early 21st century, played on some of the world’s most highly prized musical instruments in a 6-concert series held mostly on Saturdays. This concert features Austrian music from the time of Leopold I with the Smithsonian Chamber Players.