21st Century Consort

Founded in 1975 as the 20th Century Consort, the group became a resident ensemble at the Smithsonian Institution three years later. In its concerts at historic St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill, at the Hirshhorn Museum and at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Consort has presented exciting programs frequently related to museum exhibitions, featuring music by a diverse array of living composers – often world premieres – along with 20th century classics.

Under the direction of its founder and conductor, Christopher Kendall, the Consort’s artists include members of the National Symphony Orchestra and other prominent chamber musicians from Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. The ensemble is managed by Boyd Sarratt.

For over forty-five years the Consort’s concerts have been professionally recorded and archived, complementing the Consort’s produced studio recordings. This vast, living archive is permanently preserved at the University of Maryland, and can be heard without charge on our archive page, where it can be searched for any concert, composition or composer.

To read more about us, click here. And to see our full concert season, click here.

  • Igor and Coco

    at 5pm on Saturday February 12025

    Hirshhorn Museum’s Ring Auditorium – a program designed around a new Scott Wheeler work based on the words of Coco Chanel, noting the feminist icon’s ties to Picasso and Stravinsky and including the piano four-hands version of that composer’s revolutionary Rite of Spring.

    Lili Boulanger
    D’un matin de printemps
    Igor Stravinsky
    Le sacre du primtempts
    Mikhail Johnson
    Ton Yo Han Mek Fashon
    Scott Wheeler
    A Woman of Her Time: Coco Chanel Sings (world premiere)