Immerse yourself with pce
Cross-disciplinary immersion experiences, lasting weeks or months at multiple venues, are a PCE signature. These events typically include the participation of eminent scholars, and the publication of copious program books.
Washington National Cathedral, National Gallery of Art, Freer Gallery, Washington Bible Museum
February-March, 2020
The centerpiece of this festival was the world premiere of a multi-media PCE production celebrating the arts as an instrument for human understanding. We collaborated with three exceptional Armenian artists – the animator Kevork Mourad, the composer Vache Sharafyan, and the cellist Narek Hakhnazarian. Other events included film screenings with commentary, and a tribute to the founder of Armenian classical music: Komitas.
Visit An Armenian Odyssey
Washington National Cathedral
October 2019
This unprecedented festival surveyed more than a century of music inspired by Native America. PCE brought to DC South Dakota’s Lakota Music Project, including eminent Native American musicians.
Listen "PostClassical" webcast
National Gallery of Art, American Film Institute
April 2016
The first-ever tribute to Bernard Herrmann “in the round,” our month-long festival celebrated Hollywood’s supreme film composer, who was also the supreme composer for radio dramas, a concert composer of consequence, and an influential conductor. In sum: “The most under-rated 20th century American composer.”
Watch More than Music film: “Beyond Psycho" – The Genius of Bernard Herrmann
Listen –"PostClassical" webcast
Listen PCE’s CD, with our world-premiere recording of the radio play “Whitman.”
Read Joe Horowitz’s blog "Celebrating Bernard Herrmann"
Clarice Smith Center, 2013
This landmark exploration of the American Dvorak (1892-95) featured the world premiere of the “Hiawatha Melodrama,” created by PCE’s Joe Horowitz and Angel Gil-Ordonez in partnership with the Dvorak scholar Michael Beckerman (and since performed by a dozen American orchestras).
Watch More than Music film: Dvorak’s New World Symphony: A Lens on the American Experience of Race
Listen PCE’s CD “DVOŘÁK AND AMERICA”
Read Joe Horowitz’s blog: “An Act of Empathy” — a Dvorak Radio Documentary
Listen NPR Broadcast: “A ‘New World’ In 4 Movements And 41 Minutes”
Listen "PostClassical" webcast
National Gallery of Art, Dumbarton Concerts
2012
Partnering with leading musicians from the former Soviet Union, our festival included concerts, films scored by Shostakovich, and Tony Palmer’s film version of Solomon Volkov’s “Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich” – with both both Volkov and Palmer commenting.
Watch More than Music film: SHOSTAKOVICH and the STATE
Read Joe Horowitz’s blog: “Interpreting Shostakovich”
Strathmore Performing Arts Center
2011
Collaborating with pianist Jeremy Denk and baritone William Sharp, we created “Charles Ives: A Life in Music” – a production subsequently seen throughout the US.
Read Joe Horowitz’s blog: “Ives the Man”
Strathmore Performing Arts Center, The National Gallery of Art
2011
Collaborating with Alexander Toradze and his Toradze Piano Studio, our festival included a mega-survey of Stravinsky’s keyboard output – including a one-of-a kind pianola performance of the Danse Sacrale from “The Rite of Spring” – as well as a Stravinsky film festival.
Read Joe Horowitz’s blog: “Interpreting Stravinsky (continued)"
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harmon Center for the Arts
2010
These concerts included the American stage premiere of Falla’s “El Corregidor y la Molinera,” an early version of “The Three-Cornered Hat” – choreographed by Ramon Oller on commission from PCE. (PCE has also commissioned a new production of Falla’s “El Amor Brujo,” choreographed by Igal Perry, also seen both in DC and New York City.)
Listen "PostClassical" webcast
Read Joe Horowitz’s blog: “Falla and Flamenco — “The Birth of Spanish Music”
Clarice Smith Center
2010
In his lifetime, Gershwin was viewed as an interloper, a “Gershwin threat,” by American-born classical musicians. But the love affair between Russia and Gershwin was something else.
