2023/2024

The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater

You’ve never heard Duke Ellington like this! With a career that spanned 50 years, DC’s very own American icon, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, is known around the world for such jazz standards as Mood Indigo, Solitude, Take the “A” Train. But as Guest Curator, Dr. John E. Hasse, renowned Curator Emeritus of Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, will explain, Ellington sought to break out of stereotyped boxes and explore broader creative horizons. His masterworks include scores for ballet, opera, motion pictures, and Broadway musicals as well as for symphony orchestras. This spring we are joined by local up-and-coming jazz composer and pianist Ellington Carthan, to journey through the music of Duke Ellington’s extraordinary yet little-known concert pieces, including his magnificent Black, Brown, and Beige, the suite from the ballet The River, and the debut of Scott Silbert’s orchestration of Caravan featuring guest conguero Felix Contreras.

‍The National Gallery of Art

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PCE returns to the National Gallery of Art for a special performance Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins in this free 2023/24 add-on performance at the National Gallery Art. Weill's piece is the tale of a young woman named Anna, sent on a seven-year journey to help her family raise enough money to build a house. Stopping in seven cities throughout the United States, she encounters a struggle with each of the deadly sins, preventing her from accomplishing her goal. Featuring soprano Melissa Wimbish as Anna, the program also includes Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon.

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The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater

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At different times in his career, The Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott has been focused on music and architecture, but never truly explored the relationship between the two. Together with PostClassical Ensemble and Music Director Ángel Gil-Ordóñez, Kennicott will examine these artforms and their unique, yet overlapping explorations of time and space. The program includes an overture by Beethoven written to celebrate a remodeled opera house, works by Gabrieli, composed for the mighty Basilica of San Marco in Venice, a symphony by Haydn featuring one of the most complicated “architectural” forms ever composed, a classic overture by Rossini, reassembled to maximize the acoustic possibilities of The Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, and more. Accompanying the music, visuals including hand-drawn architectural sketches from Centennial Medal winner Hany Hassan FAIA will be projected on stage.Leave with a deeper understanding of your place in time and space and the buildings and sounds that make up your world.

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The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater

Ring in the new year with our beloved tradition honoring the most universal of folk hymns, and a joyful recognition of an artist with outstanding contributions to American music. This season’s stirring program for chorale and orchestra will feature Cafritz Young Arts soprano Katerina Burton and the CAAPA Chorale with works by George Walker, Gustav Mahler, Margaret Bonds, Luciano Berio. PCE will then present a local premiere of DC-native and Guest Curator Jeffrey Mumford’s extraordinary cello concerto performed by soloist Annie Jacobs-Perkins (2023 Pierre Fournier Award Recipient). As a special tribute, PCE will present Mr. Mumford with PCE’s American Roots Artist Award. Bring the family, and join us in singing Amazing Grace with the whole ensemble at the end of the evening.