As the 21st Century Consort transitions back to its original Smithsonian home of 29 years — the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden — we relish the opportunity to design programs around museum exhibitions and events. Please stay tuned for news about next season! In the meantime, we also enjoy concertizing at beautiful St. Mark’s, and are happy to untether our programs, from time to time, from visual art antecedents.
This program began life with an Earth Day plan, but it comes into the world, finally, as more a distant echo of the day; the works after intermission commemorate earthly beings both small (butterflies) and large (whales). That these species are under threat from climate change adds a certain poignancy (George Crumb was surely prescient about this). This second half of the program is preceded by works that suggest their own links to the planet.
In truth, though, this program is most of all about the astonishing range of colors available from the three very different instruments (with the added hues of percussion). George Crumb, perhaps the most original colorist among composers, recognized the remarkable palette of this ensemble; it had been little realized before him. This is our chance to revel in these instruments and artists, in ensemble and individually.
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Music for Earth Day
at 5pm on Saturday April 292023
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 3rd and A St. SE – one week after the April 22nd celebration, a musical echo that is environmentally sound
- Sebastian Currier
- Whispers
- Juri Seo
- Suite
- Wang Jie
- Sonata for the Other Shore (U.S. premiere)
- Valerie Coleman
- Danza de la Mariposa
- George Crumb
- Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale)