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\u201cThe 20th Century Consort probably needs to consider changing its name to something like the 21st<\/sup> Century Consort,\u201d wrote Joan Reinthaler in 2004 in the Washington Post. With a single exception, the works on the program in question had been composed after 1999. \u201cThe 20th<\/sup> Century Consort, too current for its name,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n Resident contemporary music ensemble at the Hirshhorn, the consort took Reinthaler\u2019s advice. However, the works to be performed on Dec. 6 and 7 in the museum\u2019s Ring Auditorium are split 50-50: three from the 20th<\/sup> century and three from the 21st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n Coincidentally, the concerts will open with Charles Wuorinen\u2019s \u201cFifty Fifty.\u201d Around four minutes long, the piece \u2014 an audience waker-upper \u2014 was written in honor of composer Oliver Knussen\u2019s 50th<\/sup> birthday in 2002. The rechristened 21st<\/sup> Century Consort, founded in 1975, had the ensemble\u2019s own 50th<\/sup> birthday in mind, no doubt.<\/p>\n \u201cFifty Fifty\u201d is one of three works that will ring out from \u201ctwo nine-foot Steinways wrangled by pianists Lisa Emenheiser and Lura Johnson,\u201d said Christopher Kendall, founding artistic director. Former head of the University of Maryland School of Music and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Kendall also co-founded Folger Consort (which won\u2019t touch a piece until it\u2019s at least 300 years old).<\/p>\n A page from George Crumb\u2019s \u201cA Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n More new and new-ish music to be four-handed by Emenheiser and Johnson: \u201cTwo Piano Suite,\u201d a jazz-inflected 1986 piece by Jamaican-born Eleanor Alberga, who lives and works in the U.K.; and \u201cHallelujah Junction,\u201d an ultra-precisely synchronized 1996 piece \u2014 named for a truck stop on the California-Nevada border \u2014 by John Adams, composer of the operas \u201cNixon in China\u201d and \u201cDoctor Atomic.\u201d<\/p>\n George Crumb\u2019s seven-section \u201cA Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979,\u201d a spacey take on early 14th<\/sup>-century Nativity frescoes by Giotto (at times, the piano\u2019s strings are muted, plucked and strummed) will be \u201ctag-teamed\u201d by the consort\u2019s fearless and formidable Steinway Artists. Written as a Christmas present for Lambert Orkis, who was appointed the National Symphony Orchestra\u2019s pianist by Mstislav Rostropovich, \u201cLittle Suite\u201d is one of the program\u2019s centerpieces, according to Kendall.<\/p>\n Another centerpiece: \u201cWinter-Spring\u201d and \u201cFall-Winter,\u201d the first and last movements of the string quartet \u201cInfinite Season.\u201d Described by Kendall as \u201cineffably beautiful,\u201d the work, partly inspired by Korean traditional music, was composed in 2017-18 by Juri Seo, a Princeton professor he called \u201cthe consort\u2019s sort-of composer-in-residence this season.\u201d<\/p>\n The four string players \u2014 violinists Xiaoxuan Shi and Joel Fuller, violist Daniel Foster and cellist Rachel Young, all NSO members \u2014 will also perform an arrangement of Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s four-voice setting of the Latin prayer \u201cDa Pacem Domine\u201d (\u201cGive peace, Lord\u201d), which the Estonian composer, who turned 90 in September, began writing two days after the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004.<\/p>\n The Hirshhorn is located at Independence Avenue and 7th<\/sup> Street NW. There will be a 4 p.m. talk prior to the 5 p.m. performance on Saturday, Dec. 6, and another following the 2 p.m. performance on Sunday, Dec. 7. Admission is free, but advance registration at hirshhorn.si.edu is recommended.<\/p>\n Later this month, on Saturday, Dec. 20, at 5 p.m., the 21st<\/sup> Century Consort will perform \u201cThe Passion of Scrooge,\u201d Jon Deak\u2019s setting of Dickens\u2019s \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d for solo baritone and chamber ensemble, which the consort premiered in 1997. Also that evening, eight vocalists will sing Victorian-era English carols and post-Civil War American carols, \u201calong with contemporary English and American counterparts.\u201d<\/p>\n The consort\u2019s 50th<\/sup> anniversary season also includes concerts on Feb. 21 and on April 18 and 19, 2026.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source georgetowner.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe 20th Century Consort probably needs to consider changing its name to something like the 21st Century Consort,\u201d wrote Joan Reinthaler in 2004 in the Washington Post. With a single exception, the works on the program in question had been composed after 1999. \u201cThe 20th Century Consort, too current for its name,\u201d she concluded. Resident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2154637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2154636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Next-Month-at-the-Hirshhorn-New-and-New-ish-Music.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2154636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2154638,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154636\/revisions\/2154638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2154637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2154636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2154636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2154636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n <\/p>\ntags<\/span>21st century consort<\/a>arts<\/a>dc arts<\/a>hirshhorn<\/a>performing arts<\/a>visual arts<\/a> <\/h6>\n<\/p><\/div>\n