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.
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Art becomes Music becomes Art
at 5pm on Saturday March 82025
with pre-performance discussion at 4pmHirshhorn Museum’s Ring Auditorium – music inspired by specific artists in the Hirshhorn collection including Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollack, Joseph Cornell and others, with an early 20th Century masterpiece by a composer equally esteemed as a painter: Arnold Schoenberg.
- Helen Grime
- Aviary Sketches
- Sarah Gibson
- You Are Still Here
- Jennifer Higdon
- American Canvas
- Bobby Ge
- Intuitive Geometry
- Lisa Bielawa
- Gargoyles
- Schoenberg
- Chamber Symphony
- Igor and Coco“Revolutions” is the first word in the title of the Hirshhorn’s 50th anniversary exhibition, which features work from the Museum’s unparalleled collection and covers the tumultuous period in art from1860–1960.