Artists in Exile | read review |
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Gildenhorn Recital Hall,
Sunday, April 6, 2008, at 3pm.
Pre-concert Prelude (on film-maker Fritz Lang) at 2pm.
Aligned with Joseph Horowitz’s forthcoming book Artists in Exile (HarperCollins February 2008), this program explores the impact of immigration on two major German and Austrian composers. Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera epitomizes his Berlin style. His little-known Walt Whitman Songs, a grateful wartime tribute to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, are breezy Broadway ballads. Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon, composed in Los Angeles, is (again) a grateful wartime tribute to FDR composed in English, and all the more moving for applying the Expressionist idiom he brought with him from Austria. With the participation of baritone Chris Pedro Trakas in “Mack the Knife,” the Whitman Songs, and the Ode, and the Left Bank String Quartet.
Revueltas in Context | read preview |
Concerts from the Library of Congress, Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building, Friday, March 14, 2008 at 8pm;
Pre-concert Prelude at 6:15pm
If there is a Latin American composer whose “time has come” it is surely Silvestre Revueltas. For one thing, Revueltas is the composer who most resonates with the charismatic Mexico of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. For another, he is the rare 20th century composer whose voice is both original and instantly recognizable. A program incorporating popular song and poetry as part of a four-day Library of Congress festival: “Two Faces of Mexican Music: Chávez and Revueltas Revisited.” Eugenia León, vocals
This concert is free but requires reservations. Reservations are guaranteed for Post-Classical Ensemble members.
Click here for ticket information.
FREE TO SING:| read review | see program
The Story of the First African-American Opera Company
The Music Center at Strathmore
Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 8pm
This unique presentation, created in collaboration with Strathmore, includes a dramatized history of the nation’s first African-American opera company in the United States (written by Michael Rosenberg and Shelley Brown), as well as a complete concert version of the first American operetta: Julius Eichberg’s delicious The Doctor of Alcantara (1866), a smash hit in its day. The creative team includes Emmy Award-winning director Scot Reese and the internationally acclaimed Morgan State University Chorus.
Benefit Gala
Tickets $500.
RSVP by October 30
Call (202) 966-8778
Click here to download invitation.
On November 15, Post-Classical Ensemble will celebrate its Fifth Season with a Spanish musical program at a Benefit Gala graciously hosted by Ambassador of Spain and Mrs. Carlos Westendorp in their spectacular Foxhall Road residence.
The City | read review | see postcard | see program
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (College Park, Md.)
Dekelboum Concert Hall
Sunday Oct. 14, 2007, at 3pm
The City, the classic American documentary film made for the 1939 World’s Fair with a script by Lewis Mumford, is a vivid argument for the Garden City movement. It features the first and by far the most remarkable of Aaron Copland’s eight film scores, called by Mark Swed of The Los Angeles Times
“an astonishing missing link not only in the genesis of Copland’s Americana style but in American music and cinema.” See the film and—for the first time anywhere—hear the full score in live performance. With commentary by the legendary documentary filmmaker George Stoney. John Basinger, narrator.
Following the performance, there will be a free field trip to Old Greenbelt’s Community Center for refreshments, a tour, and a panel discussion, “Old Greenbelt: Living up to the Propoganda.” For information or to reserve space on the bus, contact Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Discover this state-of-the-art facility, with intimate spaces and superb acoustics.
