Four seasons become eight when the National Chamber Ensemble presents The Four Seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla on Saturday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Rosslyn Spectrum. Arlington County Board Chair Jay Fisette is the special guest host for the evening.

General admission tickets are $33 for adults and $17 for students, plus applicable service charges. Tickets are available online at www.nationalchamberensemble.org and at the box office one hour prior to the performance. Group discounts for 10 or more are available by calling (703) 685-7590. For more information, call (703) 685-7590 or visitwww.nationalchamberensemble.org. The theater has free garage parking and is two blocks from the Rosslyn Metro. A wine and cheese reception with the artists follows the concert.

Inspired by landscape paintings by Italian artist Marco Ricci, “The Four Seasons” is one of Antonio Vivaldi’s most famous works. Composed during the Baroque period and published in 1725, each concerto is accompanied by sonnets, written, as most believe, by Vivaldi himself. The sonnets provide a narrative for the music, offering a more complete picture of each season as the composition weaves its way through spring, summer, fall, and winter.

The performance of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” will include a reading of the sonnets by Mr. Fisette, as well as a multimedia presentation accompanying the performance that includes photos, moving images, and Vivaldi’s own words that he wrote into the music. The Ensemble’s Artistic Director Leonid Sushansky, called “a musical storyteller” by The Washington Post, will perform the violin solos with a sextet that includes two violins, viola, cello, double bass, and harpsichord.

In contrast, Astor Piazzolla’s “Las Quatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires)” is inspired by the rhythms of the Argentinian tango. Once of Argentina’s greatest cultural exports, Piazzolla fused jazz and tango with classical forms and 20^th century harmonies, creating the musical genre of nuevo tango.

Conceived as four discrete pieces, and written nearly 240 years after Vivaldi’s work of the (almost) same name, “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires” begins with summer and concludes with spring. Originally scored for Piazzolla’s Quinteto of violin, piano, electric guitar, double bass, and bandoneón (a type of concertina), the Ensemble will perform the composition as a trio featuring Natasha Dukan on piano, Sean Neidlinger on cello, and Leonid Sushansky on violin. Images of Buenos Aires throughout the seasons accompany the musical performance.

The 2016-17 NCE season concludes on May 13 with Music of Our Time, celebrating classical music from film and theater, and an appearance by Bowen McCauley Dance.

About Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre

Located at 1611 N. Kent Street, Arlington VA

Parking: Free garage parking, entrance on Arlington Ridge Road

Metro: Blue/Orange/Silver – Rosslyn Station

Event: 9^th Annual DC-CAPital Stars: The Music of Prince

Date:  March 29, 2017 (Wednesday)

Time: 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Location: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Eisenhower Theater, 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC 20566

An evening of inspiration, the 9^th Annual DC-CAPITAL Stars: The Music of Prince rolls out the red carpet to showcase the outstanding artistic abilities of college-bound students from DC public and public charter schools.This glittering “American Idol”-style talent and scholarship award event attracts over 1,000 guests, award-winning celebrity judges, and prominent civic leaders to support education through the Arts. A celebratory reception with live music and dancing follows the show. Proceeds benefit the DC College Access Program, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping DC public and public charter school high school students prepare for, enroll in and graduate from college.

Ticket Price: Performance plus gala reception: $500 ($350 is tax-deductible)

Event website:  www.dccap.org/gala

Event Honoree: The evening is dedicated to The Boeing Company for their unwavering commitment to education and District of Columbia students.

Host Committee Chair: Ted Leonsis, DC-CAP Board Chair

Thursday, March 30, 2017, 5:30-8:30 p.m.

This illustrated lecture will explore the historical and political context of American-Russian relations during Henry Middleton’s post as American Minister to Russia in the 1820s and 30s.

$30, $20 Hillwood member, $20 student

www.HillwoodMuseum.org

4155 Linnean Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008

As the world grapples with the most severe global refugee crisis since World War II, musicians convened by conductors John Devlin and Lidiya Yankovskaya, herself a refugee who found asylum in the United States, are coming together to provide a voice to refugees in the country.

At 7:30 p.m. on Monday, April 10, Yankovskaya and instrumentalists whose friends and families have fled to the U.S. to escape violence and persecution will perform a special concert for residents in the nation’s capital and surrounding areas. The performance will take place in The Fillmore Silver Spring and will feature a full symphony orchestra and soloists—including award-winning soprano Zhanna Alkhazova—performing works by refugee composers, such as Iranian composer Gity Razaz, Béla Bartók, and Irving Berlin, as well as music that involves refugee themes written by Verdi and Puccini, among others. The concert will showcase, through music, the positive impact that those who have come to this country seeking safety and a better life have had on American culture and society. It is one of three fundraising events that the Refugee Orchestra Project is organizing this spring.

“I organized the Refugee Orchestra Project as a way to demonstrate, through music, the critical role that these individuals play in our cultural landscape,” said Refugee Orchestra Project Conductor and Artistic Director Lidiya Yankovskaya. “In light of the negative rhetoric we regularly read and hear in the news today, I felt it important for all of us to once again be reminded of the essential role that refugees play in making American culture vibrant and strong.”

Devlin and the D.C.-based Gourmet Symphony will support this endeavor by recruiting local musicians to participate in the concert, as well as food vendors who will provide product and services to encourage donations for the cause.

“Gourmet Symphony was thrilled when the Refugee Orchestra Project representatives reached out to us about a possible collaboration around this worthy cause,” said John Devlin, co-founder and Artistic Director of Gourmet Symphony. “As artistic leaders in the nation’s capital, we feel that it is our responsibility to play an active role in our community and in matters of national importance. The concert will also allow us to engage culinary partners who are passionate about this cause. Our common goal is to offer a sense of connectedness and hope through the music and fellowship shared in this performance.”

Admission to the concert is free, donations are suggested. Guests who make a donation of at least $50 will receive premium seating and a gourmet gift box including snack bites from Gourmet Symphony’s culinary partners at Beuchert’s Saloon and Mike Isabella Concepts, among others—this will be capped at 100. Proceeds from donations will go toward the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees in support of those seeking asylum in the U.S. and abroad.

Wednesday, April 12 (7 p.m.)
“54” (Miramax, 1998, R-rated*)
An American drama film written and directed by Mark Christopher about Studio 54, a world-famous New York City disco club.

Events are free and open to the public. Free tickets are required for admission to all activities. Tickets will be available beginning at 10:00 a.m. on March 30at this website. A limited number of press credentials will also be available for reservation. The deadline to reserve credentials for lectures, the symposium, and the dance party is Friday, April 28. Some of the events will be live-streamed on the Library’s Facebook page at facebook.com/libraryofcongress and its YouTube channel at youtube.com/LibraryOfCongress. All programs will take place at the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., or at its James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., both in Washington, D.C.

The excitement can be followed on Twitter at @librarycongress and #LCDisco.

As much as Jonathan Larsen’s unprecedented Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent impacted popular culture, it also transformed the lives of the actors that embodied a group of young friends trying to forge a life for themselves in New York’s bohemian East Village. 20 years after Rent’s Broadway debut, original cast members Adam Pascal & Anthony Rapp reunite at the Music Center at Strathmore on Friday, April 28, 2017 at 8 p.m. to commemorate this cultural touchstone and 20 years of friendship. The concert of duets and solos will include originals, reimagined Broadway classics, and favorites from Rent. For more information or to purchase tickets, call (301) 581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

Throughout the set, the duo will share stories about their careers, including what it was like working on one of the longest running musicals in Broadway history. Rent has proved a thread throughout their careers that has periodically brought the two back together—prior to the 20^thanniversary concert tour, both reprised their Rent roles during the national tour in 2009.

Tony-nominated Adam Pascal recently returned to Broadway’s Nederlander Theater, where Rent lived for years, in the new musical Disaster! Since his days playing Roger in Rent, Pascal has starred in Aida, Chicago, and Memphis. He is currently playing Shakespeare in the national tour of Something Rotten!

After originating the role of Mark in Rent, Anthony Rapp went on to originate another character in If/Then alongside previous Rent co-star Idina Menzel, which debuted at Washington, D.C.’s National Theatre. He wrote the book Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent, about the demands of life in the theater during his mother’s battle with cancer, which he later adapted into a one-man show. It was recently announced that Rapp will star as “astromycologist” Lt. Stamets in Star Trek: Discovery for CBS All Access, the first series developed specifically for this platform and the first Star Trek series since Star Trek: Enterprise (2005). Stamets is also the first openly gay character conceived for the Star Trek franchise.

PAUL D. MILLER aka DJ SPOOKY: REBIRTH OF A NATION
Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 8 p.m.

By Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky

Featuring Sound Impact

Eisenhower Theater–from $19

Conceived as a reimagining of director D.W. Griffith’s infamously racist 1915 silent film, The Birth of a Nation, DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation is a culturally significant project that examines how “…exploitation and political corruption still haunt the world to this day, but in radically different forms.” Today, more than a century since the release of The Birth of a Nation, the project continues to be presented internationally, engaging audiences in themes of civil rights and freedom, seen through the lens of DJ Spooky’s unique art of remixing. Dr. King once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”—one of the drivers behind Miller’s work is influenced by this. “I try to give people thought tools for mindfulness, or for thinking about the patterns we inhabit as not fixed of locked down, but changeable. It’s the beauty of that, which makes life worth living.” The Kennedy Center debut of Rebirth of a Nation is a multimedia performance featuring a string quartet from D.C.-based music ensemble Sound Impact. Two violins, a viola, and a cello will accompany three screen video projections, controlled live on stage by DJ Spooky.

NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERT HONORING JOHN F. KENNEDY
Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 8 p.m.
National Symphony Orchestra

Joshua Weilerstein, conductor

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

Concert Hall–from $79

Program:

Copland:                           Fanfare for the Common Man

William Grant Still:               Poem for Orchestra

Mason Bates:                      Passage

John Williams:                     Cello Concerto

Bernstein:                          Three Dance Episodes from On The Town

This performance features Kennedy Center Artistic Advisor at Large Yo-Yo Ma and is led by young American conductor Joshua Weilerstein in his Kennedy Center debut.

The National Symphony Orchestra performs the world premiere of Mason Bates’s Passage, an NSO commission created especially for JFK’s 100th. Passage examines the theme of American exploration through the visionary words of Walt Whitman and President John F. Kennedy. Composed for renowned mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and the NSO, the work imaginatively sets Whitman’s “Passage to India” alongside recorded fragments of JFK’s moonshot speech given in 1961. Two iconic American voices—that of poet and President—come together on a journey to the ever-expanding human frontier.