It’s autumn once again - which means that it’s time to assess the wealth of live music offerings in the DMV in the coming weeks.
It’s my job to be a connoisseur and fan of recorded music, and to take pride in the way radio offers access to great music for our listeners. But it is my deep and abiding hope that what we do here at WETA Classical inspires you to go listen to live music whenever you can. There is nothing like hearing the resonance of an instrument or a voice ring in your ears and throughout your body direct from the source. And ultimately music is an act of performance, an event that exists in the moment in collaboration with the energy of an audience - with your presence you become part of the music.
In putting together this list of concerts, I thought about the types of programs that would benefit most from the live experience. There are few things in life better than that feeling you get after a concert that you have just been nourished in an essential way - that you had to be there. I think we all need that feeling right now! Here are my suggestions:
Opera
Washington National Opera offers the world premiere of a new work by Jeanine Tesori (whose two most recent works are Blue, which the WNO performed in an acclaimed production last spring, and Kimberly Akimbo, which won this year's Tony Award for Best Musical). Grounded is based on a one-woman play by George Brant about the effects of technology on modern warfare from the perspective of an American fighter pilot forced to transition to being a remote drone operator. The operatic version expands the cast to four, starring Emily D'Angelo as the pilot Jess.
Grounded is one of two Tesori operas WNO will be performing this fall; her 2013 work The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me, a holiday opera for the whole family, will receive four performances the second weekend of December.
Opera Lafayette, the esteemed local company specializing in the French Baroque, won't be presenting any full operas until 2024, but on October 25 guest harpsichordist/conductor Christoph Rousset will lead its orchestra in an evening of chamber music and operatic selections by Francois Couperin featuring bass-baritone Jonathan Woody at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater.
Renee Fleming is an Artistic Advisor to the Kennedy Center and will be one of the 2023 Kennedy Center Honorees. She is the curator of VOICES, a concert series devoted to vocal music of diverse genres, which will begin November 19 with a recital by the great Welsh baritone Sir Bryn Terfel. However, if you want to hear Ms. Fleming do what she does best, you'll have to head to George Mason University, where on November 18 she will appear with the Fairfax Symphony conducted by Christopher Zimmernan; she will perform one of her specialties, the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss, as well as assorted selections from both opera and American musical theater.
Orchestra
The National Symphony Orchestra is presenting several can't miss programs this fall, but if I had to pick one it'd be the precious opportunity to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct November 16 and 18, in a program of works by Olly Wilson, Mozart (Piano Concerto no. 12 with Orion Weiss) and Brahms' Piano Quartet in the orchestration by Arnold Schoenberg.
It's also hard to decide among the Baltimore Symphony's upcoming appearances at Strathmore, but I'm going to go with their October 22 program featuring the great soprano Christine Goerke singing works by Anna Clyne and Samuel Barber along with Sibelius's luminous and passionate First Symphony conducted by David Danzmayr.
Speaking of the unique experience of live music - on November 16 Postclassical Ensemble will present Bouncing off the Walls: Music and Architecture, featuring works by Beethoven, Gabrieli, Haydn, Webern and Rossini that were all written for particular buildings. This always adventurous ensemble will transform the Terrace Theater into an acoustic laboratory as they explore the relationship of music to its environment.
Choral Music
Another intriguing concert on October 22 is happening at Washington National Cathedral, where the Cathedral Choral Society and the Washington Bach Consort will join forces to present an afternoon of Mexican Baroque works written for the Mexico City Cathedral.
The following weekend the WBC will be commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of the great English composer William Byrd - and since we don't know his birthday, this is the milestone with which to celebrate his extraordinary legacy,
Another celebration of English Choral music will occur at the Kennedy Center on November 8, when Marin Alsop will conduct the Choral Arts Society in works by Handel, Britten, Panufnik and two works by William Walton including Belshazzar's Feast.
As usual there will be several performances of Handel's Messiah to choose from this December, but the one I will try to catch is the NSO's, which will serve as the local debut of the extraordinary French conductor Laurence Equilbey.
Chamber Music/New Music
It's difficult to recommend chamber concerts in DC because they tend to happen in small venues and many of them are already sold out for the season. But it should be noted that two major string quartets are about to retire and will be gracing our presence one last time: the Emerson String Quartet will be presenting its penultimate concert on October 20 at the Terrace Theater in which they will perform Bartok, Beethoven, and a new work by Sarah Kirkland Snider; and the Orion String Quartet will say farewell to the Barns at Wolf Trap with a program of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert on November 19.
On October 19 Paul Huang, a superb violinist currently associated with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, will present a fascinating program of music for violin, piano and percussion by Lou Harrison, Maurice Ravel, and works written for him by Kenji Bunch and Ke-Chia Chen. Presented by Washington Performing Arts.
On October 30, also presented by Washington Performing Arts, two great pianists, Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt, will join forces for what should be a great concert, including Schubert's deeply moving Fantasie in F minor and an arrangement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, as well as works by Brahms and Philip Glass.
On November 12, a string quartet that shows no signs of retiring any time soon, Brooklyn Rider, will perform a pair of concerts at The Mansion at Strathmore. At press time it appears that their program will be called "The Four Elements", featuring four 20th century works by Dutilleux, Shostakovich, Golijov, and Ruth Crawford Seeger, as well as four new works written for them, each work representing one of the elements.
Let's make 2023 the year when we fully reclaim the sense of excitement that nip in the air brings in anticipation of the wealth of live music offerings in the nation’s capital!
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