The National Symphony Orchestra is about to lose its captain, when Music Director Leonard Slatkin steps down at the end of this season. Slatkin is clearly not ready to retire, although he has hinted that he is all too ready to move past the discomforts of his tenure in Washington. He will split his time among the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic in London, and the Pittsburgh Symphony, as well as teaching at Indiana…
FRIDAY: >> Palace of Wonders is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a literal circus of performers both tonight and Saturday. Acrobats, burlesque performers, magicians, freaks and rope trick artists are just some of the acts that will take the stage, and fortune tellers will be on hand near the bar. Tickets are $15 in advance (click here), and $20 at the door. 7 p.m. to midnight tonight, 7 to 2 a.m. on Saturday. We recommend…
Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang joins the National Symphony Orchestra in this weekend’s concerts at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, beginning this evening. He was originally scheduled to give the premiere of a new piano concerto by American composer Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962). However, as announced by the NSO in late March, the composer and the pianist issued a joint statement, saying that “differences in interpretive viewpoints and styles have led us both to feel…
April continues to be a busy month for your classical music critic, and that is just the way we like it here. This week has just about everything: some big names, some opera, some early music, and more free concerts than we probably deserve. Take your pick. >> The main event of the week is the much-anticipated (and sold out) Kennedy Center recital by Evgeny Kissin, sponsored by Washington Performing Arts Society. The program features…
This week’s concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra brought together the ideal guest artists for the violin concerto by Jean Sibelius. Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä and Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos came to international attention with their ground-breaking recording of this smoldering Romantic concerto, with the Lahti Symphony (including the only recording of the concerto’s original version, withdrawn by Sibelius immediately after the premiere). From the memorable opening of the first movement, Kavakos drew a rich,…
If the Christmas shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving, the Christmas Concert season begins in the first weekend of December. Some groups perform the same music ad nauseam — especially Handel’s Messiah, a work that Congress should pass a 10-year moratorium against performing — and others program new and interesting music every year. Just trust us when we say that, if you want to hear a Christmas Concert in this city, you can. Throughout…
