Results tagged “kennedycenterterracetheater”

At this point in December, holiday concerts and Handel's Messiah have completely hijacked the classical music schedule. Here are a few other events, not all of which avoid the spirit of the season. After this post, the Classical Music Agenda will take its end-of-the-year hiatus, to return in the New Year.

The swell of holiday concerts and Messiah and Nutcracker performances has reached a deafening level this week. Still, there are some excellent concerts to hear, if you just need to get away from the tinselly, Santa-hatted madness. HEADLINES: >> Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero will give a nearly sold-out Washington Performing Arts Society recital on Saturday (December 15, 2 p.m.), Sidney Harman Hall. This new downtown venue, if an article in The Economist is to be...

It's December, which means that much of the classical music concert schedule is devoted to some holiday that apparently occurs near the end of the month. Consult our Holiday Concert Agenda and our Handel's Messiah Agenda, if that is the sort of thing that interests you. Let's try to keep the regular agenda free of that stuff. There is plenty to talk about without it. VOICES: >> The annual residency of the Kirov Opera, the...

It is always good to know how your concert schedule is going to play out, and this week things could not be any clearer (and none of these events has sold out). Here is your list of what's good, what's free, and even some of what's both. THE BIG GUNS: >> A couple years ago, soprano Anne Schwanewilms was in the news because she replaced Deborah Voigt, when the latter could not fit into a...

Without a doubt, the most important event in classical music this week is the opening of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's season. It will be the occasion of the official installation of Marin Alsop as the group's music director, the first woman to hold that position with a major American symphony orchestra. A celebrated champion of contemporary music, particularly by American composers, Maestra Alsop has come into her new job with a full head of steam,...

There is little doubt that the main event this week is the opening of the final part of the Washington National Opera's season. The company's penultimate production, Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa in a staging by David Alden, won the Laurence Olivier Award this year for best new opera production. For reasons beyond understanding, not a single performance has sold out, although this is likely to be the high point of the WNO season. Some people may...

April has been an exhausting month for classical music listeners. Still, when that means staying out late to hear Evgeny Kissin play eight encores, you will not hear me complaining. Put your shoes back on, because there is more music to be heard. We start with the best events this week. >> By all accounts, Chinese-American pianist Chu-Fang Huang, winner of the 2005 Cleveland Piano Competition, is an exceptional talent at age 23. She is...

Last week's Classical Music Agenda omitted an excellent concert opportunity that just came to my attention, annual concerts of Schubert's music called Schubert, Schubert, and Schubert. The final installment is this evening (March 18, 8 p.m.), at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall (37th and O St. NW), when the Auryn String Quartet will play Schubert's Quartetsatz, D. 703, and the "Death and the Maiden" quartet, D. 810. Pianist Kyoko Hashimoto will also play the four Schubert...

Last year's celebration of the 100th birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich, on September 25, fizzled out somewhat here in Washington. This week, dedicated listeners had the chance to take their fill of the Russian composer's music. After a thundering concert performance of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by the Kirov Opera on Sunday, it was the Emerson Quartet who brought the early half of their complete cycle of Shostakovich's fifteen string quartets, played to great acclaim in London and other places (available in a live recording made at the Aspen Music Festival several years ago). On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening in the sold-out Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, the most attentive audience in recent Washington history heard the first eight string quartets and the piano quintet. With coughing and other distracting noise kept to a striking minimum, one had the feeling of being in the company of serious listeners. A man in front of me cupped his hand to his ear to focus on the quartet's sound if there was too much rustling of programs near him.

We always tell you where the free concerts are, but just because a concert is free does not mean that it will be good. This week, we are leading with the free concerts because they are so good. Other than the free stuff, there is so much to hear, we have selected a few options from what is less expensive, not sold out, and likely to be good.

Susan Graham is one of those rare singers who combine broad audience appeal with critical approbation. She has won a Grammy, for a stellar CD of Charles Ives songs with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and sings on the greatest operatic stages of the world, in works ranging from Mozart to new operas like Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that Graham's recital on Friday night in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater was sold out weeks ago, especially since her inventive and exquisite program focused on one of her specialties, the French art song, or mélodie. With very few old favorites, the 24 songs by 22 composers (only Fauré and Debussy merited more than one piece) provided a "tasting menu," in Graham's words, a connoisseur's guided tour of the less traveled départements of French song.

Does anyone else need a vacation from their vacation? Some good classical music is just the thing to calm your nerves after battling the traffic or the airport crowds. Happily, we have some excellent things on the agenda for this week, before the Holiday Concert Madness truly sets in, beginning with some of the big guns. STAR CONCERTS: >> The main event this week as far as I am concerned is the recital by powerhouse...

FRIDAY: >> The EU Film Showcase kicked off at the AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center last weekend, and we'll have a little more about it for you this weekend. In the meantime film buffs should consider checking out Bergman Island, a documentary by another Swedish filmmaker, Marie Nyeröd, that visits legendary director Ingmar Bergman at his home on the island of Fårö. Now 88 years old, this is no doubt the final document of...

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