National Gallery Of Art | Music

Contemporary arrangements of 18th- and 19th-century American choral music, sung by the Central Bucks County (Pennsylvania) High School West Choir, the Eighteenth Street Singers (Washington, DC), and ProMusica of Columbia Union College (Takoma Park, Maryland). Choral music has been an important part of music at the National Gallery ever since the very first concert at the Gallery in December 1942, sung by the United States Navy Music School Chorus. In April 2009, the Gallery celebrated the reopening of the American Galleries in the West Building with a three-day festival of American choral music presented by six outstanding choirs. Listen to the some of the music sung by three of those choirs.

Program: Felix Mendelssohn's Ein Sommernachtstraum (A Midsummer Night's Dream), op. 61, arranged by Ulf-Guido Sch‰fer; Gyˆrgy Ligeti's Six Bagatelles; Samuel Barber's Summer Music, op. 31 (1956); Astor Piazzolla's Suite, arranged by Ulf-Guido Sch‰fer; Scott Joplin's Ragtimes, arranged by Ulf-Guido Sch‰fer. Formed in 1986, the Ma'alot Wind Quintet has won prizes in major international festivals and established a reputation as a leading proponent of new music. In addition to works written especially the ensemble, the group also performs arrangements by quintet members Ulf-Guido Sch‰fer (clarinet) and Volker Grewel (horn). The other members of the quintet are Stephanie Winker (flute), Christian Wetzel (oboe), and Volker Tessmann (bassoon). This performance took place on January 11, 2009, and was the inaugural concert of Mendelssohn on the Mall, a festival presented jointly by the Library of Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Gallery of Art.

Program: Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor. The National Gallery of Art Piano Trio, the resident trio at the National Gallery, features violinist Luke Wedge and cellist Ben Wensel, both of whom have performed as members of the National Gallery Orchestra. The third member of the trio, pianist Danielle DeSwert Hahn, is also the Gallery's music program specialist. Listen to the four movements of Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor, from a performance in the West Garden Court of the National Gallery on February 24, 2008.

Program: Music from the 16th and 17th centuries that explores the theme of travel. National Gallery of Art Chamber Players perform a concert in honor of Fabulous Journeys and Faraway Places: Travels on Paper, 1450ñ1700. On this occasion, the ensemble includes tenor Wolodymyr Smishkewych, recorder virtuoso Kathryn Montoya, harpist Keith Collins, dulcian player Anna Marsh, viola da gambist Loren Ludwig, and harpsichordist Stephen Ackert.

Program: Songs by William Grant Still for soprano and piano. Listen to music by William Grant Still, known as the dean of African American composers, and one of the country's most celebrated figures in music. A prolific composer, Still wrote more than 150 works, including symphonies, ballets, operas, chamber pieces, and vocal works. The concert features performances by Celeste Headlee, W. G. Still's granddaughter, and Danielle DeSwert.

Leon Major, professor of music, University of Maryland. The world of music merges with the visual arts in Later the Same Evening: an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper. The performance is a joint project of the National Gallery of Art, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and the University of Maryland School of Music. Music professor Leon Major, talks about the opera and artist Edward Hopper with Tempchin.

Program: Locus iste (Bruckner), Prevent us, O Lord in all our doings (Byrd), Ave maris stella (Grieg), Psalm 121, Above all praise and majesty (Mendelssohn). One of the most renowned choirs in the world, the Choir of St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, presented a brief concert at the National Gallery of Art on October 25, 2007, in honor of the centenary of the birth of Paul Mellon (1907ñ1999), founding benefactor of the Gallery and an ardent Anglophile. In his memoir, Reflections in a Silver Spoon, Mellon suggested that his love of Great Britain was foreshadowed during his first visit with his parents, when he was baptized in St. George's Chapel on December 22, 1907. The performance took place in the Gallery's East Garden Court.

"Out my one window," an aria from Later the Same Evening: an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper,commissioned to coincide with the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Gallery. The opera was performed this fall at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. "Out my one window," music by John Musto and lyrics by Mark Campbell, is used by kind permission of Peermusic Classical, New York.