Kristian Bezuidenhout

In 2016 fortepiano phenomenon Kristian Bezuidenhout brought this unique instrument to life in a rare treat for Coolidge audiences. Known for his thoughtful and energetic performances of concerti, Lieder, chamber music and solo repertoire, Bezuidenhout trains his eye on some of the riches of the mid-1790s for his appearance at the Library.

Abdullah Ibrahim Concert

Jazz pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim celebrated his Library of Congress residency with a captivating concert that left the audience in awe of his authenticity as a performer. A onetime protégé of Duke Ellington, Ibrahim has become a cultural icon in his native South Africa, through his commitment to expanding music education opportunities and developing the nation’s unique jazz scene.

Maria Schneider Concert

Maria Schneider’s music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and beyond categorization.” The multiple GRAMMY® award-winning composer and bandleader spent a packed week at the Library on the spring of 2016 for a special residency project. On the agenda were explorations of the Library’s treasure trove of scores and memorabilia, plus workshops for students and conversations with curators. Schneider conducted her terrific orchestra—a crack 17-member collective made up of many of the finest jazz musicians performing —and unveiled her new Library of Congress commission, created through the support of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, in memory of David Logan.

Dafnis Prieto SÍ O SÍ Quartet Concert

with guest artist, Christian Howes, violin
“Prieto’s music explodes with energy… original compositions with a singular passion and intensity.”

Cuban-born composer and drummer Dafnis Prieto is unquestionably one of the most important leaders of the New Latin Jazz movement.  He has wonderfully blurred the line between traditional Latin-jazz and 21-century postbop, fusing Afro-Cuban rhythms and modern jazz harmonies.

Minguet Quartett

Regulars at major music festivals and concert halls across the globe, this award-winning quartet takes its name from 18th-century Spanish philosopher Pablo Minguet, who wished to make the arts accessible to everyone. Champions of contemporary composers like Rihm and Stockhausen, the Minguet is equally at home with Romantic masters. Treasures both new and well-known are on offer in this beautiful program, including favorites by Czech composers and a transcription of one of Gustav Mahler’s most affecting lieder.

Ensemble Signal 

In 2017, our season opened with an extraordinary evening of chamber works by a pioneering composer whose music has profoundly influenced composers and musicians worldwide. The Library and Washington Performing Arts joined forces to present this special concert featuring the East Coast premiere of Runner, for winds, percussion, strings, and two pianos. Brad Lubman conducts the fearless supergroup Ensemble Signal, which has enjoyed a long and cordial relationship with the composer.

Roger Steffens: Oral History of Bob Marley

Reggae historian and collector Roger Steffens’ new book So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley (W.W. Norton Press) is“a rich new oral biography” (New York Times) offering the author’s intimate, revelatory interviews with Marley’s family and musical partners. Steffens speaks from the expert viewpoint of a journalist, musician and producer known for four decades of reggae scholarship as well as tours with the artist, and the impressive resources of his own Marley collection of recordings and memorabilia, the world’s largest.

Martha Graham Dance Company 

In April of 2016, the Martha Graham Dance Company presented three performances in our festival week, offering a trio of the five Graham ballets commissioned by the Library: Appalachian Spring (music by Aaron Copland); Cave of the Heart (music by Samuel Barber) and Dark Meadow (music by Carlos Chávez).

Conversation with Pontus Lidberg

Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg discusses his career and his Library of Congress/Martha Graham Dance Company co-commission, "Woodland," with Nicholas Brown. Set "Notturno for strings and harp" by Irving Fine, "Woodland" was commissioned for the 90th anniversary season of "Concerts from the library of Congress." Part of the "Martha Graham at the Library" Festival and presented in association with the Embassy of Sweden and Swedish Arts Council.

Bibliodiscotheque Symposium, featuring Gloria Gaynor

As part of the series, the Library explored the history of disco music, dance and culture in an afternoon symposium that featured appearances by Gloria Gaynor, Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, distinguished music scholars Martin Scherzinger and Alice Echols, photographer Bill Bernstein, and Yolanda Baker, the only disco ball maker in the United States.

Mark Padmore, tenor | Andrew West, piano

English tenor Mark Padmore is one of the most revered artists on the international touring scene, and was recognized with the 2016 Musical America Vocalist of the Year Award. Padmore’s exquisite artistry was on display in an intimate evening for voice and piano. He was joined by frequent recital partner pianist Andrew West who has collaborated with the likes of Florian Boesch, Alice Coote, and Roderick Williams, and is on faculty at the Royal Academy of Music.

Musicians from Marlboro

Alexi Kenney, violin  |  Robin Scott, violin  |
Shuangshuang Liu, viola
Peter Stumpf, cello  |  Zoltán Fejérvári, piano

The Viennese schools were well-represented in this season’s final appearance of the Musicians from Marlboro. In addition to several classics by old friends, we heard a comparably expansive early quartet by Anton Webern, a composer renowned for his economy of means. The manuscript of Webern’s 1905 quartet is housed in the Hans Moldenhauer Archive in the Library of Congress.

Presented in association with the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series of the Smithsonian Freer and Sackler Galleries

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival:
Orion String Quartet, Brett Dean, Tony Arnold, and Juho Pohjonen

Orion String Quartet
Brett Dean, viola   |  Tony Arnold, soprano  |  Juho Pohjonen, piano

This concert highlighted the music of Australian composer and violist Brett Dean, who premiered a new work for viola and piano—a Library co-commission—with Juho Pohjonen.  His arresting monodrama “And once I played Ophelia” featured the remarkable soprano Tony Arnold as protagonist. Striking, imaginative effects in both vocal and string writing sketched a passionate figure the composer calls a “feistier” Ophelia. The manuscript for Schoenberg’s second quartet was given to the Library of Congress by Gertrude Clarke Whittall.

Presented in association with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival

Pérez, Cohen, Potter Quintet with Larry Grenadier and Nate Smith

The Pérez, Cohen, Potter Quintet is a new collaborative project by a remarkable trio of bandleaders: pianist and composer Danilo Pérez, trumpeter Avishai Cohen and über saxophonist Chris Potter. It’s an all-star lineup at the forefront of jazz today. You’ll sense  the chemistry that grew out of the trio's Jazz 100 tour in 2017 celebrating the centennials of Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk and hear some great new compositions written especially for this tour.

The Saiyuki Trio with Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto saxophone

“ …daring and rewarding fusion…a genuinely international music.”
The New York Times

This concert brings “sound magic” from a trio whose name means “Journey to the West.” French jazz guitarist Nguyên Lê studied visual arts and philosophy before working with artists like Ornette Coleman, Ray Charles, and Mauricio Kagel. Influences from Jimi Hendrix to the traditional music of Vietnam meld harmonies from East and West to paint “an Asia without borders.”

From our 2014-2015 season: 

Steven Lutvak / Jeanine Tesori / David Yazbek

A thrilling evening with three of Broadway’s hottest musical creators performing their own music—Steven Lutvak, Jeanine Tesori and David Yazbek make a rare appearance in Washington for an intimate evening of music, lyrics and magic.

STEVEN LUTVAK’s rise to Broadway fame was met with the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2014 for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Lutvak is a past recipient of the Kleban Award for Lyric Writing for the Theater and the Fred Ebb Award for Songwriting for the Theater.

JEANINE TESORI
From Thoroughly Modern Millie to Violet and Caroline, or Change, Tesori’s musicals have become modern classics, garnering her four Tony nominations and the Olivier Award for Best New Musical.
Photo credit: Matthew Karas

DAVID YAZBEK
David Yazbek, a three-time Tony nominee, is known for his comedic musicals The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. He is also a GRAMMY-nominated producer, Emmy-winning TV writer, and co-composer of the theme song to PBS’s Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego?

Race and the Broadway Musical

A lecture with Warren Hoffman, Ph.D

Warren Hoffman, a program director, producer, theater critic, and playwright, discusses the role of race in American musical theater. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Kanter called Hoffman’s book “an eye-opener for anyone studying the racial implications of commercial musical theater.”

Presented in conjunction with the Library of Congress exhibition
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom”

Presented in association with Songs of America and the Library of Congress Daniel A.P. Murray African American Culture Association

Theaters

The Library of Congress and W.W. Norton & Company celebrated the publication of "Theaters" with a special program of music and entertainment. Featured were an illustrated overview of the book by the author, Craig Morrison; a performance by Ted van Griethuysen of the Shakespeare Theatre Company; a musical performance by Genevieve Williams featuring songs composed by Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Howard Dietz and Irving Berlin; and a performance by the noted Russian pianist Svetlana Potanina of compositions by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Robert Schumann.

On Saturday, October 16, 2019, Concerts from the Library of Congress hosted Afro-Cuban jazz master, Chucho Valdés. Founder and director of the legendary Cuban jazz band Irakere, winner of six GRAMMYs and four Latin GRAMMYs, Chucho Valdés is not just an authority in the jazz world, he is a living legend.  This Pick of the Week features Chucho Valdés in conversation with Music Specialist, Claudia Morales. 

In this fun and intimate conversation, Chucho Valdés reacts to some treasures from our music collections that include music composed by his father, one of the most representative musicians in the history of Cuban music, pianist and composer, Bebo Valdés. He also reacts to a photo of him and the American drummer Max Roach from the Max Roach Papers housed in the Music Division. Chucho’s reaction to the materials was simply heartwarming.

No one talks to Chucho Valdés without talking about Irakere. I had so many questions to ask, but I was primarily interested in learning about his experience with religious syncretism, the merging of two or more religions in a new belief, as an element of his music. Chucho told me about his exposure to Santeria through his grandfather and to the Catholic church through his grandmother, and how he mixed these elements with jazz and funk to create the Timba Cubana. 

We concluded the interview with the question: what would you say to the new generation of musicians? Chucho’s answer was the summary of the musician that he is; he mentioned discipline as the number one characteristic a musician must have. Discipline plus passion for music have spurred this now 79-year-old Afro-Cuban jazz master to continue his musical journey that includes writing an opera, touring around the globe with a robust calendar of performances, and now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting with his audience via online recitals on social media. I invite you to watch and enjoy Chucho Valdés in conversation.

Click this link to view Chucho Valdés in conversation 

Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier

Canadian pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier have been performing together since their student days and have developed a remarkable sensitivity to the four-hand and two-piano literature. Their program features staples of the Russian two-piano repertoire, with a few additional gems. 

His "Last Work:" Hearing Ghosts in Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances

Blair Johnston, PhD, Associate Professor of Music Theory, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University.

Blair Johnston speaks about Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, Rachmaninoff's last completed orchestral work. The Library of Congress now holds all of the significant primary source materials for this iconic work.

Friday, April 21, 2017

Steven Isserlis, cello 

Connie Shih, piano

Who is ready for a Fauré foray by cellist Steven Isserlis and Canadian pianist Connie Shih? The program is filled with gems from the familiar to the Martin-new, including a work composed by Thomas Adès for Isserlis. 

Pre-concert Talk:
Steven Isserlis

Acclaimed worldwide for his profound musicianship and technical mastery, British cellist Steven Isserlis talks with Music Specialist Nicholas Brown about his work as a cellist, chamber musician and author.