The National Philharmonic News

Young Virtuosos From Hungary - TAMÁS KÖKENY, DOUBLE BASS AND FRIENDS is being presented by the Armel Opera Festival. This special concert is FREE on Wednesday, March 1 at 8:00 pm at Well Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall).

The National Philharmonic's 2016-2017 season at The Music Center at Strathmore continues on the Chinese New Year with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Chinese gold medal pianist Haochen Zhang and Antonín Dvo?ák's Symphony No. 8 in G Major. Both will be led by Philharmonic Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski. Zhang and Gajewski are both former child prodigies. Since his gold medal win at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the 26-year-old pianist has captivated audiences in the United States, Europe and Asia, with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination and spectacular virtuosity. The double performance will be held Today, January 28 at 8 pm. and Sunday, January 29 at 3 pm in the Concert Hall. There will be an audience question and answer session with Zhang and Gajewski after each performance. Ticket prices are $23-$78 and are free for children age 7-17. Strathmore is located at 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. For more informationor to purchase tickets, visit www.nationalphilharmonic.org or call 301.760.4403.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, in partnership with CAP UCLA, presents the first Los Angeles performance since the 1950s of LOST IN THE STARS Kurt Weill's powerful, uncompromising social indictment of apartheid-era South Africa, on Today, January 28, 8 pm, and Sunday, January 29, 2017, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. 

The Takoma Ensemble, a classical string orchestra, will offer a concert exploring the theme of immigration Saturday, January 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 633 Sligo Ave., Silver Spring. The concert, co-sponsored by CASA, is entitled The Golden Door: Music Without Borders, and will be led by Artistic Director and Conductor Victoria Gau. The concert will feature several works by American immigrants, beginning with a solo performance by Billboard winner Lilo Gonzalez. Other selections include Divertimento for Strings by Bela Bartok, Hungarian immigrant to the United States, and the world premiere of Beside the Golden Door, by Kim and Kathryn Kluge (Kim is the son of immigrants). The  concert will include Within Her Arms, composed by Grammy nominee Anna Clyne, and Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, written by Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos, the most famous South American composer of all time. Spanish commentary will be provided by Lindolfo Carballo, of CASA, and English commentary will be provided by Gau, and the performance will be followed by a Q&A and reception. Tickets are $10-$25 (kids 16 and under are free) and are available at takomaensemble.org. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to CASA. More information is available at 240-463-3695.

The National Philharmonic's 2016-2017 season at The Music Center at Strathmore continues on the Chinese New Year with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Chinese gold medal pianist Haochen Zhang and Antonín Dvo?ák's Symphony No. 8 in G Major. Both will be led by Philharmonic Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski. Zhang and Gajewski are both former child prodigies. Since his gold medal win at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the 26-year-old pianist has captivated audiences in the United States, Europe and Asia, with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination and spectacular virtuosity. The double performance will be held Saturday, January 28 at 8 pm. and Sunday, January 29 at 3 pm in the Concert Hall. There will be an audience question and answer session with Zhang and Gajewski after each performance. Ticket prices are $23-$78 and are free for children age 7-17. Strathmore is located at 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. For more informationor to purchase tickets, visit www.nationalphilharmonic.org or call 301.760.4403.

Tickets are on sale beginning Friday, January 20th for Young Virtuosos From Hungary - TAMÁS KÖKENY, DOUBLE BASS AND FRIENDS. It is being presented by the Armel Opera Festival.

Young Virtuosos From Hungary - TAMÁS KÖKENY, DOUBLE BASS AND FRIENDS is being presented by the Armel Opera Festival.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, in partnership with CAP UCLA, presents the first Los Angeles performance since the 1950s of LOST IN THE STARS Kurt Weill's powerful, uncompromising social indictment of apartheid-era South Africa, on Saturday, January 28, 8 pm, and Sunday, January 29, 2017, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. 

I am enormously thrilled that Strathmore took this one on. It's not the kind of event the largely classical venue usually presents and I hope to see more risk-taking in the future. The pieces offer up stories that need to be heard, and there's no denying the music and performers are first rate.

When Andrew Lippa, the Broadway composer, was commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to write I AM HARVEY MILK for its 35th anniversary in 2013, the hour-long work about the assassinated gay rights activist was called an oratorio. While it was a success from the start, people involved already thought it was ready to move on to something bigger. The result is I AM ANNE HUTCHINSON /I AM HARVEY MILK, which has its world premiere on April 23, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, MD, a Metro ride from Washington, DC, starring Kristin Chenoweth, and composer-librettist Lippa.

Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medalist Stanislav Iodenitch, a piano virtuoso hailed for playing with "laserlike clarity" (The Boston Globe), performs Tchaikovsky's iconic Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Young Artists Symphony Orchestra, led by Artistic Director Alexander Treger, in a free concert capping the orchestra's highly successful inaugural season on Sunday, May 1, 2016, 6 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall.  The all-Russian program also includes Tchaikovsky's enthralling Suite from Swan Lake and Lyadov's Kikimora, a tone poem about a malicious spirit from Russian folklore.  Additionally, to celebrate the conclusion of its first season, YASO is hosting a separate ticketed post-concert soiree, featuring a buffet dinner and jazz performances by Nigel Armstrong, former concertmaster under Treger, Julian Zheng, YASO principal horn, and other YASO artists.

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Rolando Sanz and Strathmore, in association with Bruce Cohen, Robb Nanus and David Bloch will present the world premiere of I Am Anne Hutchinson/I Am Harvey Milk, a musical celebration of two American icons, for a two-night engagement on Saturday, April 23 and Sunday, April 24, 2016 at the Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, Maryland).

Mayo Performing Arts Center presents the Polish Baltic Philharmonic of Gdansk, Boguslaw Dawidow, principal guest conductor, on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 8 pm. Tickets are $29-$59.

Baltimore, Md. (March 23, 2015) - For the conclusion of the 2014-2015 season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Music Director Marin Alsop lead the BSO premiere of Leonard Bernstein's comedic operetta Candide tonight, June 11 at the Music Center at Strathmore, and June 12 through June 14 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The BSO announced today that the semi-staged production of Candide will be directed by Garnett Bruce and features an all-star cast including Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's weekly current events quiz show "Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me," and Judy Kaye, Tony Award-winning star of The Phantom of the Opera. Rounding out the cast are Keith Jameson, Lauren Snouffer, Joshua Hopkins, Mark Diamond, Marie Lenormand, Stephanie Sadownik, Curtis Bannister, Patrick Cook, Andrew McLaughlin, Melissa Wimbish and Lewis Shaw.

Richmond, Virginia The Richmond Symphony invites you to experience Bernstein: Chichester Psalms tonight, May 9 at 8:00 p.m. and tomorrow, May 10 at 3:00 p.m. at Richmond CenterStage's Carpenter Theatre.

Mercury closes out the 2014-15 season with an all-Beethoven concert led by Artistic Director Antoine Plante featuring the composer's beloved Eighth Symphony and Triple Concerto on Friday, May 16 at 8 PM at the Wortham Center's Cullen Theater.  The rarely heard Triple Concerto will feature Mercury concertmaster Jonathan Godfrey, principal cellist Kevin Downs and guest pianist, Wendy Chen, playing on an 1832 Bosendorfer 80-key fortepiano, on loan from the Moores School of Music.  The Eighth Symphony is the penultimate performance in Mercury's cycle of Beethoven symphonies, which started in 2009 and will conclude next May in Mercury's 15th Anniversary Season finale with Symphony No. 9, "Choral".  This concert is sponsored in part by Haynes and Boone with underwriting support from Hans and Lili Kirchner, Vey and Brigid Spin, and Stephen and Kristine Wallace.  Tickets start at $18, to purchase or for more information visit www.mercuryhouston.org or call 713.533.0080.  

April 28, 2015 – Richmond, Virginia The Richmond Symphony invites you to experience Bernstein: Chichester Psalms on Saturday, May 9 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, May 10 at 3:00 p.m. at Richmond CenterStage's Carpenter Theatre. The performance features boy soprano Jack Rigdon and the 150 member Richmond Symphony Chorus with Director Erin R. Freeman. This is the final Altria Masterworks Concert of the 2014-15 Season and will be led by Music Director, Steven Smith.

Baltimore, Md. (March 23, 2015) — For the conclusion of the 2014-2015 season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Music Director Marin Alsop lead the BSO premiere of Leonard Bernstein's comedic operetta Candide on June 11 at the Music Center at Strathmore, and June 12 through June 14 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The BSO announced today that the semi-staged production of Candide will be directed by Garnett Bruce and features an all-star cast including Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's weekly current events quiz show “Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me,” and Judy Kaye, Tony Award-winning star of The Phantom of the Opera. Rounding out the cast are Keith Jameson, Lauren Snouffer, Joshua Hopkins, Mark Diamond, Marie Lenormand, Stephanie Sadownik, Curtis Bannister, Patrick Cook, Andrew McLaughlin, Melissa Wimbish and Lewis Shaw.

Jackie Evancho, the pint-sized diva who won hearts - and a second-place finish - on NBC's 'America's Got Talent, returns to her hometown tonight, February 13 to perform with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall.

Jackie Evancho, the pint-sized diva who won hearts - and a second-place finish - on NBC's "America's Got Talent, returns to her hometown on February 13 to perform with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall.