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.

• In the Spirit

  at 5pm December 6 & 2pm December 72025

  Hirshhorn Museum’s Ring Auditorium

  Charles Wuorinen

  Fifty – Fifty

  Juri Seo

  Winter-Spring, Fall-Winter from Infinite Season

  Eleanor Alberga

  Two Piano Suite

  George Crumb

  Little Suite for Christmas

  Arvo Pärt

  Da Pacem Domine

  John Adams

  Hallelujah Junction

• The Passion of Scrooge

  at 5pm December 202025

  St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill

  Good King Wenseslas (trad.)

  Lori Laitman

  Snowy Night

  We Three Kings (trad.)

  It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (trad.)

  Nicholas Maw

  Swete Jesu

  In the Bleak Midwinter (trad.)

  Deck the Hall (trad.)

  Oliver Tarney

  Bulalulow

  Here we come a-wassailing (trad.)

  Jon Deak

  The Passion of Scrooge

• Who’s Counting
  It stands to reason that having originally launched on the eve of the U.S. bicentennial, the 21st Century Consort’s half-century mark would come on the edge of the country’s 250th.

  Continue readingWho’s Counting