With a career that spanned 50 years, DC native and American icon, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, is known around the world for such jazz standards as Mood Indigo, Solitude, and his band’s signature tune Take the “A” Train composed by collaborator Billy Strayhorn. But, Ellington sought to break out of stereotyped boxes, to explore broader creative horizons. His masterworks include scores for ballet, opera, motion pictures, and Broadway musicals as well as for symphony orchestras. This spring we journey through the music of Ellington’s extraordinary yet little-known concert pieces, including his magnificent Black, Brown, and Beige, the suite from the ballet The River, and the debut of Scott Silbert’s orchestration of Caravan featuring guest conguero Felix Contreras.

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Beyond Category: the Concert Music of Duke Ellington

Kennedy Center

PCE’s seasonal favorite returns with a stirring program for chorale and orchestra that celebrates the universal expression of the human spirit through music. Amazing Grace, perhaps the most universal of folk hymns, has inspired people all around the world for centuries. This new year, we feature works by George Walker, Gustav Mahler, Margaret Bonds, Luciano Berio, and the DC premiere of Jeffrey Mumford’s extraordinary cello concerto with soloist Annie Jacobs-Perkins, winner of the 2023 Pierre Fournier Award. ‍

As a special tribute, PCE will present Mr. Mumford with PCE’s American Roots Artist Award for his outstanding contributions to the American music. Bring the family, and join us in singing Amazing Grace with the whole ensemble at the end of the evening.

Amazing Grace: in Paradisum

Music and architecture share a vocabulary and they overlap through analogies and metaphors. Composers "build" symphonies, which are highly structured. And architects dream of buildings that unfold to the senses like music, a seamless flow of experience through time and space. Both forms use terms like ornament, balance and symmetry. But is architecture really "frozen music," an idea that emerged in the late 18th century when musical forms were becoming longer and more complex?

Bouncing Off the Walls: Music and Architecture

Paris in the 1920s was a place of great artistic conflict and excitement. While some like Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso embraced Neo-Classicism and a "return to order" in the aftermath of the Great War, others launched bold new experiments. Under the leadership of André Breton, Surrealism sought to shock the bourgeoisie, while a passion for African and African American art and culture, from jazz to art to dance, galvanized the city, personified above all by Josephine Baker. Join PCE for a screening of the classic Surrealist film Entr’acte (René Clair, 1924) with the original score by Erik Satie performed live. The program also includes film footage of Baker dancing and a tribute to jazz great Sidney Bechet. It culminates with Maurice Ravel's partly-jazz-inspired Piano Concerto in G featuring soloist Drew Petersen, winner of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2017 American Pianists Award. Presented in collaboration with Harry Cooper, senior curator of modern art at the National Gallery of Art.

Paris at Midnight

ENTWINED: A DOUBLE FEATURE

Featuring the world-premiere of Entwined: Love’s Magicians by Derek Goldman and El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter’s Puppet Show) by Manuel de Falla.

In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Manuel de Falla’s seminal chamber opera, El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter’s Puppet Show), PCE and playwright/director Derek Goldman team up to present Entwined: A Double Feature. This program features the world premiere of Goldman's sensuous new performance piece conjuring the deep and unlikely friendship between Federico García Lorca, widely regarded as the greatest Spanish poet of the twentieth century, and Manuel de Falla, Spain’s most prominent composer of the period. With Flamenco artists, solosits, actors, and more, the performance will help contextualize the second half of the program.

In the second half, PCE performs the chamber opera El retablo de maese Pedro, possibly de Falla's best work. The opera was premiered in March 1923 at the salon of Princess de Polignac who commissioned the work. The opera was inspired by a chapter in Don Quixote and is set in early 17th century Spain. In this collaboration with visual artist Kevork Mourad, puppets are replaced by animation synced with the score performed by PostClassical Ensemble.

Entwined

Amazing Grace is perhaps one of the most beloved folk hymns, uplifting people around the world for centuries. Join PCE as we ring in the new year with Amazing Grace: Music for the Spirit, the first of what will be a seasonal family-concert tradition. Hear versions of Amazing Grace woven throughout the program along with African-American spirituals, works by William Grant Still, J. S. Bach, Evelyn Simpson Curenton, and one of the most celebrated American composers alive today, Adolphus Hailstork. Audiences will leave this stirring program for chorale and orchestra reminded why music is known as the universal expression of the human spirit, ending with a joyous sing-along not to be missed.

PostClassical Ensemble will be joined by guest soloists tenor Wayne Jennings and soprano Angeli Ferrette, bass Justin Harrison, the CAAPA Chorale, with Guest Curation by Stanley J Thurston (The Heritage Signature Chorale, Washington National Cathedral).

Adolphus Hailstork, one of the most celebrated American composers, will also join us on stage to receive PCE’s American Roots Artist Award.

PostClassical Ensemble

Apr 16, 2024

Beyond Category: the Concert Music of Duke Ellington

Jan 10, 2024

Amazing Grace: in Paradisum

Nov 16, 2023

Bouncing Off the Walls: Music and Architecture

Nov 9, 2023

Paris at Midnight

Apr 19, 2023

Entwined

PostClassical Ensemble

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