For Immediate Release
September 30, 2017
Media Contact:
Erica Bogese
Communications Manager
(202) 749-8978
bogesee@doaks.org
WASHINGTON – For the first time ever, single-concert tickets are available for the Music at Dumbarton Oaks concert series, coinciding with an especially exciting season of performances. Each concert is held in the stunning Renaissance-inspired Music Room at Dumbarton Oaks, allowing guests to enjoy a specially designed acoustic experience surrounded by artistic masterpieces, such as El Greco’s Visitation, western medieval tapestries, and French Gothic sculptures. This intimate space holds just over 100 guests, providing an immersive environment for the music aficionado.
Tickets are still available and may be purchased online or by calling 202-339-6436. Performances take place Sundays at 7:00 p.m. and Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Visit the Dumbarton Oaks website for additional information about the concert series.
DE MAEYER-KENDE DUO
October 15 & 16, 2017
Internationally acclaimed Belgian duo Jolente De Maeyer (violin) and Nikolaas Kende (piano) make their Washington, DC, debut with sonatas by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven. They have performed at the Flagler Museum, Dieleghem Abbey, Concertgebouw Bruges, and the Festival of Flanders. This year, De Maeyer was named Outstanding Young Artist by Belgian National Radio for her recording with Kende of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata.
CLARICE AND SÉRGIO ASSAD
November 12 & 13, 2017
Clarice Assad, Grammy-nominated vocalist, composer, and pianist, and her father, Grammy award-winning guitarist and composer Sérgio Assad, explore the evolution of samba and classic Brazilian song. The pair has performed at venues across the world, including Le Palais des Beaux Arts and University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall. Clarice has been featured on NPR's All Songs Considered and serves as the primary arranger and orchestrator for the New Century Chamber Orchestra.
SPANISH BRASS
December 3 & 4, 2017
Created by five Spanish musicians in 1989, Spanish Brass quickly garnered praise, setting “the highest standard for brass chamber music” (trumpeter Maurice André). This critically renowned ensemble has performed at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Juilliard School of Music, the National Auditorium in Madrid, and the Festival de Musique de Radio-France. Experience the group’s virtuosity and boundless energy in an attractive holiday program of Baroque classics, beautiful arrangements of traditional carols, and Spanish favorites.
ASTRID SCHWEEN
January 7 & 8, 2018
Cellist Astrid Schween dazzles audiences with her brilliant performances, fluidity, and élan. A seasoned chamber musician, as well as an acclaimed soloist, she made her debut with the New York Philharmonic and is the first woman to join the Juilliard String Quartet. A dedicated educator, she is a member of the Juilliard cello faculty, and before that taught at the University of Massachusetts and the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford. Her Washington, DC, debut will feature a program of works by Debussy, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff.
VOXARE STRING QUARTET
February 11 & 12, 2018
This prize-winning quartet formed in 2008 and continues to impress critics with their talent, dynamism, and innovative approach to classical music. Selected repeatedly as The New York Times’ Classical Pick of the Week, the Voxare String Quartet has performed at the Guggenheim Museum, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. In their Dumbarton Oaks debut, they perform string quartets by Mendelssohn, Fairouz, and Vrebalov.
DÉNES VÁRJON
March 18 & 19, 2018
First-prize winner at the Piano Competition of Hungarian Radio, the Leó Weiner Chamber Music Competition in Budapest, and the Géza Anda Competition in Zurich, pianist Dénes Várjon has worked with prestigious symphony orchestras throughout the world, including the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. In his Dumbarton Oaks premiere, he will offer a program of music by Beethoven, Bartók, Ravel, and Chopin.
THE KNIGHTS
April 15 & 16, 2018
The Knights have performed at the Kennedy Center, MATA Festival, and as part of the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts series. Flexible in size and repertory, this Grammy-nominated ensemble is dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audience and music. The Knights have collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Osvaldo Golijov, Lise de la Salle, and Gil Shaham. For their performance at Dumbarton Oaks, they have planned a thrilling Hungarian-flavored program of works by Brahms, Ligeti, and Taraf De Haidouks.
###
About Dumbarton Oaks
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection is the legacy of Robert and Mildred Woods Bliss, collectors and patrons of art and scholarship in the humanities. The Blisses designed Dumbarton Oaks to be beautiful without and within, filling the gardens with flowers, the library with rare volumes, and the house with fine art and music. The Blisses wanted the Music Room to be Renaissance in character, but to harmonize with the Georgian style of the Main House. In 1927, they acquired two sixteenth-century marble arches, said to be from Ravenna, Italy, which firmly established the room’s Renaissance character. The Blisses commissioned the Parisian designer Armand Albert Rateau to fabricate reproductions for the ceiling and floor, inspired by the guardroom of the historic Château de Cheverny near Paris. The American artist Allyn Cox was commissioned to paint murals for the walls of the Music Room corridor and entrance staircase. The Blisses used the Music Room for musical performances, scholarly lectures, and intellectual discourse. It continues to serve these purposes at Dumbarton Oaks, hosting an annual public lecture series and a concert series, which was inaugurated in 1946 as the Friends of Music.
The multiple aspects of the Blisses’ gift include historic gardens and buildings, world-class collections for researchers and the public to enjoy, and generous support for fellowships and scholarly endeavors on the local, national, and international levels. Dumbarton Oaks is a research institute of Harvard University that exists to further and publish research in the three areas of study: Byzantine Studies, Pre-Columbian Studies, and Garden and Landscape Studies. Residential fellowships for an academic year, semester, or summer are awarded in all three areas of study to scholars from around the world. In addition, Dumbarton Oaks offers one-month non-residential awards to researchers, and short-term pre-doctoral residencies to advanced graduate students. Each of the three programs of study supports and disseminates research in its relevant fields through an annual symposium; a program of public lectures, informal talks, and colloquia; and publications. The Dumbarton Oaks Museum contains the Byzantine Collection, one of the finest collections of artifacts from the Byzantine Empire with more than twelve hundred objects from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. The Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art is housed in the Pre-Columbian Pavilion, designed by architect Philip Johnson. This collection comprises objects from the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica, the Intermediate Area, and the Andes. The House Collection consists primarily of the historic interiors, Asian, European and American artworks, and interior furnishings. Ten acres of formal gardens surround the 1801 Federal-style house. Mildred Barnes Bliss worked closely with renowned landscape designer Beatrix Farrand to transform the land surrounding the house into terraced gardens and vistas. The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library has extensive holdings in our three dedicated areas of study and the Rare Book Collection is strong on works of landscape architecture, botany, and horticulture, while also reflecting the research focus of Dumbarton Oaks. The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) documents and preserves material from fieldwork and the Dumbarton Oaks Archives inventories, conserves, stores, and makes accessible the institute’s past, current, and future records and artifacts.