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The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s award-winning contemporary music ensemble-in-residence, 21st Century Consort, led by artistic director Christopher Kendall, and featuring chamber musicians Elisabeth Adkins, Paul Cigan, Lisa Emenheiser, Abigail Evans, Laurel Olssen, Sara Stern, Rachel Young with guest vocalists Lucy Shelton, William Sharp, Peter Becker, Deanne Meek and others, presents A Season of High Drama inspired by artworks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s exhibitions and permanent collection.
SEASON CALENDAR
Note: If you are interested in purchasing individual concerts, click on the concert titles below.
Election Special: Music for Uncivil Discourse
Sat., Oct. 27, 2012
In honor of the November elections, the Consort circles the American democratic process with Fred Rzewski’s paean to Latin liberty in The People United Will Never be Defeated, Jon Deak’s setting of Orwell in Greetings from 1984, and, to remind us of our own revolution, Peter Maxwell Davies’s dramatic portrait of George III, Eight Songs for a Mad King.
Frederick Rzewski –The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Jon Deak – Greetings from 1984
Peter Maxwell Davies – Eight Songs for a Mad King
Music for Civil War
Sat., Dec. 1, 2012
Celebrating the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s exhibition The Civil War and American Art, the Consort traverses three distinct treatments of tunes from the American Civil War by William Brehm, Charles Ives, and Stephen Rush, along with Igor Stravinsky’s music theater classic, A Soldier’s Tale.
William Brehm – Civil War Sights and Songs
Charles Ives – “Hawthorne” from Concord Sonata
Stephen Rush – Songs from U.S. Grant
Igor Stravinsky – A Soldier’s Tale
The Passion of Scrooge or A Christmas Carol
Sat., Dec. 15, 2012
Back by popular demand, Jon Deak’s marvelous and theatrical setting of Charles Dickens’s seasonal classic, The Passion of Scrooge or A Christmas Carol is joined by another English masterpiece, Benjamin Britten’s incomparable A Ceremony of Carols, performed by the Washington National Cathedral Girl Choristers, directed by Michael McCarthy.
Benjamin Britten – A Ceremony of Carols
Jon Deak – The Passion of Scrooge or A Christmas Carol
How it Begins
Sat., Feb. 23, 2013
An epic pairing of two major twentieth century works, both settings of surreal texts will be sung by soprano Lucy Shelton: Arnold Schoenberg’s seminal Pierrot Lunaire, with mime Mark Jastor as Pierrot, and To Wake the Dead, Stephen Albert’s earthy and decidedly un-surreal setting of passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, with Elegy, Bruce MacCombie’s moving tribute to Albert, and the Consort’s to MacCombie.
Arnold Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire
Bruce MacCombie – Elegy
Stephen Albert – To Wake the Dead
Dance the Night Away
Sat., Apr. 20, 2013
The Consort performs music that takes us from the darkest hours of night to the dancing light of dawn, in a program calculated for challenge and choreographed to move. George Crumb’s staged, classic environmental manifesto Night of the Four Moons (protesting human incursion into the moon’s ecosystem of myth) is a companion to music from a variety of composers’ for the dance of our imaginations.
Derek Bermel – Mulatash Stomp
Eugene O’Brian – Three Songs from Algebra of Night
David Froom – Dance of the Whistling Wind
Snorri Sigfus Birgisson – Dance for Solo Cello
George Crumb – Night of the Four Moons
Donald Crockett – World Premiere
Programs subject to change.
OTHER INFORMATION
The Smithsonian American Art Museum tells the story of America through the visual arts and encompasses more than three centuries of American artistic achievement that parallels the nation’s cultural development. The Museum is honored to host the 21st Century Consort as artists-in-residence. For more information on the museum and its Renwick Gallery, please visit our website at AmericanArt.si.edu.
The museum is located at Eighth and F Streets, NW just above the Metro station at Gallery Place/Chinatown (Red, Yellow and Green lines).
The 21st Century Consort has presented outstanding artists in concert since its 1975 debut concert in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lincoln Gallery. For thirty-five seasons, the Consort has offered engaging and challenging performances and recordings of contemporary American music especially for DC audiences. Visit 21stcenturyconsort.com for more information.
