FRIDAY: >> We don’t usually hype big studio movies in the Picks, but when faced with a certain kind of reptile on a specific form of transportation — there’s not much you can do but cross your fingers it doesn’t turn out to suck and jump on the hype train (err, plane). More specifically, literally dozens of local D-list Internet celebrities will be attending the 10:10 p.m. screening of Snakes on a Plane at the…
The Classical Music Agenda has been missing in action for several weeks now, but there just has not been that much to hear. My weekly recommendations will return at the end of this month, as the September schedule heats up. For now, you will have to content yourselves with the following concerts, few and far between. This coming weekend (August 18 and 19, 8 p.m.), the Wolf Trap Opera Company concludes its season with a…
Steven Blier’s encyclopedic knowledge of the annals of song has produced many worthy recitals. Indeed, as Blier confided during his accustomed, wry narration, he has piles of future programs stored up on his computer — let’s hope he has a good backup system for his hard drive. The recital Blier hosted, with members of Wolf Trap Opera Company, was organized around four islands, and the dreams of paradise that islands distant and near can inspire….
FRIDAY: >> Please Hammer, don’t hurt ’em. Landmark R&B radio station WPGC celebrates 19 years of playing 18 jams in a row with a concert at the Verizon Center that features LL Cool J, MC Hammer, Chuck Brown, EU, Naughty By Nature, Bow Wow, MC Hammer and Lisa Lisa. Apparently Cult Jam had previous commitments. $45 – $70, 7 p.m. (Kyle Gustafson) >> You may have missed La Didone last weekend, but if you…
The classical music world of Washington seems to have Baroque music on its mind. After plugging the Washington Early Music Festival in this week’s Classical Music Agenda, it is time to tell you about the two Baroque operas that were staged over the weekend. For its first production this summer, the Wolf Trap Opera Company is staging Telemann’s Orpheus, which I heard on Friday night. This opera, rediscovered only in the 1970s, combines a mostly…
FRIDAY: >> Mike Doughty’s band, which we assume will in fact include Mike Doughty, are taking the 9:30 Club stage tonight for a show that as of this writing is still not sold out. If you people need a reason to go above and beyond his music, allow us to present into evidence Exhibit A and Exhibit B. Oh, and Exhibit C: DCist’s awesome interview with him back in September. With Kevin Devine, 8 p.m.,…
One of the deficiencies of the city’s leading opera company, Washington National Opera, is that lately they think of Mozart as early opera. The last time the WNO staged an opera from before 1775 or so was Handel’s Julius Caesar in 2000 and the same composer’s Agrippina in 1992 before that. Baroque opera is one of my major interests, and Handel is great, but there is a century of Baroque opera before Handel, too. We…
Leonard Slatkin has been programming good music for the National Symphony Orchestra this season, much of it featuring an impressive roster of guest soloists. So far this fall, this DCist has heard Itzhak Perlman playing Barber and could have heard, but sadly missed, Nikolaj Znaider playing Bruch and Truls Mørk playing Elgar. True, more unusual fare has been safely packaged with favorites, for the most part, but in concert programming, just as in politics, it…
This DCist has managed to satisfy those persistent classical music cravings from time to time lately, but August is a slow month for concerts. In fact, we took our passport to make the trip all the way out to Wolf Trap last night, on a dangerous quest to see Rossini’s La Cenerentola in a semistaged version by the Wolf Trap Opera Company (reviewed at Ionarts). The big party resumes in Washington next month, of course,…
