When I go to a concert, I hope to experience something life-enhancing. Recently I was invited to hear The New Orchestra of Washington’s November 15th concert at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater: “Eroica Rising: Celebrating Women’s Heroic Journey”. The concert opened with Camille Pépin’s Sound of Trees. Pépin’s compositions are inspired by nature and sustained by her deep talent for orchestral color. The piece felt like a much-needed musical shinrin-yoku or “forest bath”.
The concert continued with Joan Tower’s Made in America which asks a salient question: How do we preserve the values that keep “America the Beautiful?” Finally, Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez led a rousing interpretation of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, celebrating, in this program’s context, women’s heroic spirit. NOW’s mission is to “represent the robust cultural and ethnic diversity in the metropolitan Washington area” and to welcome “audiences into a transformative musical experience.”
Their December concerts include “NOW in the City” and “NOW in the Library”, offering free, family-friendly programs entitled “La Música de las Américas” at the Room and Board showroom on 14th Street and the Germantown and Wheaton Libraries. Their March program presents “Earth, Wind, and Sound: A Celebration of Nature through Music and Poetry”.
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