 eighth blackbird |
After our recommendation of the National Symphony Orchestra’s performance of David Del Tredici’s Final Alice last week, it looks like another week of contemporary music awaits. If you think classical music is only about the reiteration of older music, think again.
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW:
>> The modern music ensemble known as eighth blackbird will perform a program called The Only Moving Thing on Tuesday (May 13, 7:30 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. This adventurous concert combines Steve Reich’s Double Sextet (for six musicians playing simultaneously with a recording of themselves) with a staged collaborative work by David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe of Bang on a Can fame. Both works were premiered by the ensemble this past March (reviewed by the Post). Tickets: $38.
>> Another living composer, Thomas Adès, comes to the area this week to conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, on Saturday night in the Music Center at Strathmore (May 17, 8 p.m.). Adès, a distinguished pianist and conductor, will lead the BSO in performances of two Beethoven symphonies, nos. 1 and 4. Those works bookend the first local performance of the new violin concerto by Adès, to be performed by Anthony Marwood, for whom it was composed. If you cannot make it on Saturday, you could also go up to Baltimore for performances on Thursday or Friday instead (May 15 and 16, 8 p.m.), in Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.
>> The Choral Arts Society of Washington will finally bring one of the most successful modern masterpieces to the area, when they perform the oratorio El Niño. Norman Scribner conducts this work by American composer John Adams, a retelling of the Nativity of Christ, on Sunday evening (May 18, 7:30 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets: $15 to $65.
>> On Wednesday night (May 14, 8 p.m.), the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra will give a concert at Strathmore. The 20th-century repertoire includes Schoenberg’s transcendent Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night, op. 4) and Shostakovich’s first piano concerto, with Olga Kern as soloist. Tickets: $40 to $75.
