With holidays this week, there isn’t much going on in classical music. So that your Classical Music Agenda can take an Easter vacation, today’s installment covers the next two weeks.
Violinist Arabella Steinbacher THIS WEEK:
>> Lucinda Childs and her company present Dance, (April 21 and 22, 8 p.m.), with live dancers interacting in front of a large projection of the 1979 film of the work by Sol LeWitt. It seems that the music, by Philip Glass, will be played from a recording, but it may still be worth the trip to the Clarice Smith Center in College Park.
>> On Saturday night (April 23, 8 p.m.) the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra comes to the GMU Center for the Arts, with violinist Arabella Steinbacher as soloist. The program includes Strauss, Hartmann, Mozart and Haydn — and should be very good.
>> On Easter Sunday (April 24, 4 p.m.), pianist Sara Daneshpour plays a smorgasbord recital of Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev at the Phillips Collection.
NEXT WEEK:
>> Faculty members at George Washington University are offering concerts next week: a program of Monteverdi madrigals and arias (April 25, 7 p.m.) and Masterworks of Bach (April 28, 7:30 p.m.), with violinist Elizabeth Field (violin) and harpsichordist Joseph Gascho. Both events are at the United Church (1920 G Street NW).
>> Student composers at the University of Maryland will receive performances of their new pieces, in a free concert (April 26, 8 p.m.) at the Clarice Smith Center in College Park.
>> On Wednesday (April 27, 7:30 p.m.) pianist Sofja Gülbadamova will play a free recital at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. A reservation is required.
>> Take your lunch next Thursday (April 28, 12:10 p.m.) to hear a free concert by violinists Christian Tetzlaff and Antje Weithaas, playing music by Bartók and others, in the the East Building auditorium at the National Gallery of Art. No ticket or reservation required.
>> Violinist Sarah Chang joins the National Symphony Orchestra next week (April 28 to 30), in Bruch’s first violin concerto, with Kurt Masur also leading an overture by Mendelssohn and a Brahms symphony.
>> The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performs an oddly similar program on Saturday (April 30, 8 p.m.) at Strathmore: concertmaster Jonathan Carney plays Bruch’s second violin concerto, and guest conductor Cornelius Meister also leads an overture by Smetana and a Brahms symphony.
>> The best free event for the rest of the month may be the concert by baritone Thomas Hampson and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, next Thursday (April 28, 8 p.m.), at the Library of Congress. The eclectic program features Hampson singing selections from George Crumb’s American Songbook cycles, composed in the last decade, and cellist Andrés Díaz in Tan Dun’s Elegy: Snow in June.
>> Fans of the piano will not want to miss the chance to hear the recital by Marc-André Hamelin next Friday (April 29, 8 p.m.), presented by Washington Performing Arts Society at Strathmore.
>> The Washington Bach Consort presents an aptly-timed performance of Bach’s Easter Oratorio on the Octave of Easter (May 1, 3 p.m.), at National Presbyterian Church.
>> Later that evening (May 1, 6:30 p.m.), pianist Thomas Pandolfi will give a free recital at the National Gallery of Art, in the West Building’s West Garden Court. Again, no tickets or reservations are required.
>> For a complete calendar of classical music concerts, go to Ionarts.
