Classical Music Agenda
'Tis the season for holiday concerts and performances of Handel's Messiah, but we will have our yearly post on all that business later this week. If you would like to have your music not so much in the spirit, here are a few options.
Yuja Wang, pianist
>> The Trio Solisti offer an interesting program on Thursday night (December 3, 7:30 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, including Paul Moravec's Passacaglia and a trio arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.
>> Holy schedule conflicts, Batman! Thursday night is also the return of pianist Angela Hewitt, who will perform Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations (December 3, 8 p.m.), presented by WPAS in the Music Center at Strathmore.
MAKE IT FREE:
>> The National Gallery of Art closes its 64th American Music Festival with a free recital by pianist Joel Fan on Wednesday at lunchtime (December 2, 12:10 p.m.). The program includes music by Carter, Bolcom, Gandolfi, and Kirchner.
>> If you would rather have vocal music with your lunch that day, try the free concert at St. John's, Lafayette Square (December 2, 12:10 p.m.) by the Madrigal Singers from St. Alban's and National Cathedral School.
>> For a different kind of premiere, attend a performance of Nicolò Ceva's Trionfo per l'Assunzione della Santissima Vergine, a work first performed in Naples in 1705, as it is revived at Georgetown University's Wolfington Hall (December 3, 8 p.m.).
>> The St. Lawrence String Quartet will give a free concert on Friday night (December 4, 8 p.m.) at the Library of Congress, featuring the Washington premiere of John Adams's string quartet and the world premiere of a new string quartet by Ezequiel Viñao. Oh, and there is another quartet by somebody named Haydn.
>> Audrey Andrist will be the guest artist at this Sunday's concert (December 6, 3 p.m.) presented by the Piano Society of Greater Washington at Silver Spring's Calvary Lutheran Church. There will be a reception afterward.
>> With the price of admission to the Phillips Collection on Sunday (December 6, 4 p.m.) is a concert by the Bates and Friends Ensemble, musicians from the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.
>> Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer will give a recital this Sunday (December 6, 6:30 p.m.) on the free concert series hosted by the National Gallery of Art. His Washington recital debut makes one think that this concert will be worth hearing.
FURTHERMORE:
>> The University of Maryland Symphony will play music by Strauss, Varèse, and Rachmaninoff this Friday (December 4, 8 p.m.) at the Clarice Smith Center.
>> WPAS presents Bulgarian pianist Plamena Mangova in a recital on Saturday (December 5, 2 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.
>> The next concert by the 21st Century Consort is also this Saturday (December 5, 5 p.m.) at the Reynolds Center.
>> For more contemporary music, there is also the Great Noise Ensemble at Catholic University's School of Music on Saturday (December 5, 7:30 p.m.).
>> For more concert information, go to Ionarts.