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Mildred Barnes Bliss was an enthusiastic patron of the Musical Art Quartet. She supported the string quartet from soon after its inception in 1926 until it disbanded in 1944. The quartet performed in the Music Room each year between 1941 and 1944, and it was largely due to the success of these performances that Dumbarton Oaks decided to inaugurate a Friends of Music concert series in 1946.

Many famous or soon-to-be famous musicians performed at Dumbarton Oaks over the years, and several have reminisced fondly about their concertizing there, in both the residential and institutional periods.

Dumbarton Oaks’ mission to foster original research and publication in humanistic studies has found a parallel expression in the Friends of Music commissions and performances of contemporary music.

Oral History Interview with Valerie Stains, undertaken by James W. Curtin and Joshua Wilson in the Dumbarton Oaks Study on July 9, 2013. At Dumbarton Oaks, Valerie Stains is the Artistic Director of the Friends of Music and Dumbarton Oaks Music Advisor and Coordinator (since 1989).