DÍAZ TRIO with Luz Manríquez, Piano
Friday, February 13 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"Impeccable interpretations, ...each player is a distinctive virtuoso...bold [and] risk-taking..."

Ysaÿe: String Trio "Le Chimay"
Sierra: Kandinsky (World Premiere)
    Commissioned by the McKim Fund in the
    Library of Congress.
Beethoven: String Trio in G Major, op. 9, no. 1

Roberto Sierra "is a master of rhythm and atmosphere."

BRODSKY QUARTET
Friday, February 20 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...lucid, raptly expressive,...eloquent, rich toned, and full of color..."

Britten: String Quartet no. 1 in D Major, op. 25 (Coolidge Commission)
Schubert: String Quartet in A Minor, D. 804 ("Rosamunde")
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet no. 1 in D Major, op. 11

BUDDY & JULIE MILLER
Friday, February 27 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...depths of heartache and loneliness... with plenty of twang to ease the way."

Husband-and-wife singer-songwriter duo from Nashville offers a broad brush of songs--country and folk ballads, hybrids and out-and-out rock, pop and "gutbucket honky-tonk," and their own special brand of "non-urban art songs"--bridging country's deepest roots in old-time mountain music with today's more rockin' country.

MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTET
Friday, March 5 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...never simply beautiful, but always rich with character."

Haydn: String Quartet in C Major, op. 76, no. 3 ("Emperor")
Bolcom: String Quartet (Washington Premiere)
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 44, no.3

SPIRIT OF FÈS
Saturday, March 6 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...a fest of musical praise, soul-searching, and peacemaking."

From the highly acclaimed Festival of World Sacred Music held in the Moroccan city of Fès, music, song, and dance from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions featuring the Algerian-Jewish singer Françoise Atlan; the Women's Hadra Ensemble from the Taroudant region of southern Morocco, and the Anointed Jackson Sisters gospel group from Goldsboro, North Carolina.

JIMMY SCOTT and the Jazz Expressions
Wednesday, March 10 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer of the 20th century."

One of the most original and exceptional voices in the history of popular song, for more than fifty years admired by fellow singers from jazz to pop including Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, Ray Charles, and Madonna, the elder statesman of jazz vocalists is joined by his trio--bassist "Hill" Greene, pianist Mike Kanan, and drummer "Cook" Broadnax--for a glimpse of what an evening in a mid-fifties show club must have been like.

KENNEDY CENTER CHAMBER PLAYERS
Friday, March 12 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

Beethoven: Trio in B-flat Major for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, op. 11
Poulenc: Sonata for Flute and Piano (Coolidge Commission)
Brahms: Piano Quartet in G Minor, op. 25

GLORIAE DEI CANTORES
Elizabeth Patterson, Director
Friday, March 19 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"Seamless ensemble, seductive phrasing...crisp, rhythmically dancing performances."

Music of the Americas from songs sung aboard the ships of Columbus to contemporary works, performed by a choir of men and women ranging in age from eighteen to sixty from diverse occupations and musical backgrounds.

ROBERT MANN TRIBUTE
Winners of the Naumburg Competitions
Friday, March 26 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

Top winners of the Walter W. Naumburg International Competitions in Chamber Music: Biava String Quartet; Violin: Frank Huang; and Piano: Gilles Vonsattel---make their Library of Congress debut in a concert honoring the founding primarius of the Juilliard String Quartet.

MEREDITH D'AMBROSIO
Wednesday, March 31 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"To listen to d'Ambrosio is to abandon oneself to her charm."

Jazz singer-pianist, calligrapher, watercolorist, creator of eggshell mosaics, composer, lyricist, recording artist, and teacher--with a distinctive "dusky, sensuous voice" and understated style: performances of "quiet passion"and "meditative intimacy."

MASTERS of MEXICAN MUSIC
Thursday, April 1, 2004 at 7:30 pm
Coolidge Auditorium

Masters of Mexican Music explores the musical traditions of an important and growing segment of the U.S. population. Master musicians from four distinct regional traditions - the mariachi of Jalisco, the Veracruz harp tradition ensemble, the accordion-based conjunto of the Texas-Mexican border area, and the marimba of southern Mexico will be performing. Featured artists include Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, José Gutiérrez, Mingo Saldivar, and Marimba Chiapas. The national tour is produced by the National Council for the Traditional Arts and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Tickets are required; no reserved seating.

Presented by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress

LEIPZIG STRING QUARTET
with Ricardo Morales, Clarinet
Friday, April 2 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"urbanity and...admirable unity of thought and utterance."

Mendelssohn: String Quartet no. 6 in F Minor, op. 80
Ives: String Quartet no. 1 ("A Revival Service")
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, op. 115

NORMAN and NANCY BLAKE
Old Time country music from Georgia
Thursday, April 15, 2004 at 8:00 pm
Coolidge Auditorium

Norman Blake is one of the most respected musicians in the field of country music. His career, spanning almost fifty years, includes over thirty recordings, as well as hundreds of sessions and appearances, with artists ranging from the Carter Family and Johnny Cash to Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, and John Hartford. A virtuoso guitar and mandolin player, he and his wife, Nancy, have received four Grammy nominations for their traditional music recordings.

LES TALENS LYRIQUE
Christophe Rousset, Conductor/Harpsichord
Anna Maria Panzarella, Soprano
Wednesday, April 21 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...obviously enthusiastic... their playing is a joy."

The critically-acclaimed period instrument ensemble specializing in French and Italian repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries performs instrumental and vocal works by Handel, A. Scarlatti, Lully, Leclair, Lambert, and Montéclair.

OLIVIER BAUMONT, Harpsichord
Friday, April 23 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"An excellent balance of vibrancy and elegance."

Works by Chambonnières, F. Couperin, Daquin, Handel, J. C. Bach, Reinagle, and James Hewitt's Yankee Doodle Variations.

MERIDIAN ENSEMBLE ARTS and
ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET
Saturday, April 24 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"A brash bunch of brass wizards" shares an evening with a "vibrant and thrillingly cogent" string quartet.

"Boundary-stretching" works by Richard Shemaria, Kirk Nurock, Elliott Sharp, and Frank Zappa; followed by Beethoven and Shostakovich string quartets.

LAURA CANTRELL
Thursday, May 6 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"...a wise, sweetly troubled voice...pure and vulnerable."

Nashville-born, New York City-based, longtime DJ of the weekly Radio Thrift Shop, and "neo-traditionalist country" singer-songwriter whose music has resonated with critics and fans on both sides of the Atlantic--in a program of vintage country music and original country-pop gems.

PACIFICA QUARTET
Friday, May 7 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"Energetic and fearsomely talented."

Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, op. 64, no. 5 ("Lark")
Larsen: Schoenberg, Schenker, and Schillinger
Mozart: Adagio & Fugue in C Minor, K. 546
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in D Major, op. 44, no. 1

SHIRLEY HORN
Saturday, May 8 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"Songs are lucky when Shirley Horn chooses them."

A "romantic chanteuse without peer"and "straight-ahead swinger" sings "heart-stopping" ballads with "exquisitely unhurried pace--inviting listeners into an elegant and sincere musical embrace."

FULL CIRCLE SOULJAHS
Thursday, May 13 at Noon
Coolidge Auditorium

"...steeped in pop culture and social-protest ingenuity."

Created and led by Kwikstep and Rokafella, New York City's preeminent b-boy and b-girl, this street-wise crew of break dancers celebrate the "full circle" of Hip-Hop culture--from the issues to the trends, from the roots to the fashion--in a flourish of Latin, African, and urban dance styles punctuated by spoken word breaks.

DAVE HOLLAND QUINTET
Friday, May 14 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"a vibrant...and swinging amalgam of individual voices playing as one."

Unconventional contemporary jazz ensemble of saxophone, vibes, trombone, bass, and drums led by the #1 Bass Players in the DownBeat Critics Poll for three consecutive years.

HAZEL DICKENS and
HELEN SCHNEYER
Saturday, May 15 at 2:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"Hazel Dickens' voice is the call of the high lonesome."
"Helen is one of the few singers who can move [one] to silence."

Two uniquely individual singer-songwriters on the Coolidge stage: Hazel Dickens--pioneer of bluegrass music and one of the greatest mountain and old time singers of our time; and Helen Schneyer--one of the most powerful contraltos and intensely emotional singers in the folk song world, a frequent guest on the Prairie Home Companion.

Presented in cooperation with the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

DON ROY TRIO and FLORENCE MARTIN
Franco-American music from Maine
Tuesday, May 18, 2004 at noon
Neptune Plaza

Don Roy is one of the finest Franco-American fiddlers in the Northeast. Roy learned to play the fiddle from his uncle, Lucien Mathieu, a master of the French Canadian style. He organized and played with the Maine French Fiddlers for eleven years, during which he played at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wolf Trap, and on A Prairie Home Companion. In 1990 he won the Maine State Fiddle Championship. Also in the group are Don’s wife, Cindy, a pianist and step dancer, and bassist Jay Young. Florence Martin, from Lewiston, Maine, is an accomplished singer of Acadian songs which she learned when growing up in the Saint John’s Valley on the Maine-New Brunswick border.

MAN ABOUT TOWN
Friday, May 21 at 8:00pm
Coolidge Auditorium

"Bernstein's music in all its contemporary irony and postmodern glory."

Works from the Leonard Bernstein Collection in the Library of Congress, performed by mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle, baritone Kurt Ollmann, and pianist Scott Dunn, with assisting pianist Lucy Mauro, display the range of the charismatic composer's oeuvre that crossed traditional boundaries between Broadway musicals and classical song.

 

AMERICAN MUSICAL CELEBRATIONS!
The Army Blues Jazz Ensemble of the US Army Band (Pershing’s Own)
Friday, June 4, 2004 at 12:00 Noon
Coolidge Auditorium

Formed in 1972, The Army Blues carries on a tradition begun by the Army Dance Band which entertained soldiers and civilians in the battle zone during World War II. As the premier jazz ensemble of the U.S. Army, and one of the few remaining professional groups of its kind, the Blues' present-day mission is to promote America's art form: jazz. The Blues pay tribute to the big bands of yesterday by performing music by such greats as Ellington, Basie, Miller and Herman. The Army Blues perform their own versions of the latest and most innovative sounds of contemporary composers, as well.
Free--no tickets required

FREEDOM SONGS
Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon
Tuesday, June 8 at 12:00 Noon
Coolidge Auditorium

Songs of the Freedom Singers and the music of the civil rights movement will highlight this stirring concert.
Free--no tickets required.

PASCHALL BROTHERS
African American gospel quartet from Virginia
Tuesday, June 15, 2004 at noon
Neptune Plaza

The Paschall Brothers stand firmly in the great tradition of unaccompanied religious singing in Tidewater Virginia. The black gospel quartet tradition can be traced back to plantation life in the South. The style blossomed in the region and by the 1920s found a national following with groups such as the Heavenly Gospel Singers and, notably, the Golden Gate Quartet of Norfolk. Formed in 1981 by the late Rev. Frank Paschall , Sr., the Paschall Brothers carry on this remarkable tradition and bring new life and energy to this venerable style.

OINKARI BASQUE DANCERS from IDAHO
Wednesday, July 14, 2004 at noon
Madison Hall

The Oinkari Basque Dancers, from Boise, Idaho, perform the traditional dances brought from the Basque region of the Pyrenees Mountains of France and Spain to the West by immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1960 a group of young Basque Americans traveled to the town of Donosti in Basque country and became inspired to form a group that preserved these dances. Now after forty years, the sons and daughters of the founding members carry on the tradition. The name "Oinkari" means "fast feet," an apt description of the acrobatic dance style.

PHONG NGUYEN ENSEMBLE
Vietnamese Music from Ohio
Wednesday, August 18, 2004 at noon
Madison Hall

Phong Nguyen is one of the world’s foremost performers and scholars of Vietnamese music, and has received a National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts for his efforts to preserve and present this music in the United States. Raised in the Mekong Delta region, he comes from a family of prominent musicians, and was traditionally trained to play numerous instruments in various regional styles. He left his native land in 1974, received a doctorate in ethnomusicology from the Sorbonne in Paris, and came to United States shortly thereafter.

NEA NATIONAL HERITAGE FELLOW
Tuesday, September 28, 2004 at noon
Coolidge Auditorium

Anjani Ambegaokar - 2004 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship awardee, North Indian Kathak dance.

NADIM DLAIKAN
Arabic music from Michigan
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 at noon
Coolidge Auditorium

Nadim Dlaikan, maker and virtuoso player of the nay, a single-reed wind instrument, is a highly respected member of the dynamic music community of Arab Detroit, the largest Arab American community in the United States. Nadim was born in the village of Alai in Lebanon and began to play the nay at an early age. He went on to study under master musicians at the Lebanese Conservatory and moved to Beirut, where he became a member of Lebanon’s best-known folk troupe, traveling throughout the Middle East. He moved to the Detroit area in 1970 and became a leader in the Arabic musical community, playing with musicians from throughout the Middle East. His four-piece ensemble will be playing with him in Washington. In 2002 Nadim Dlaikan received a National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

AMERICAN INDIAN MUSIC and DANCE TROUPE
from Oklahoma
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at noon
Coolidge Auditorium

The American Indian Music and Dance Troupe is directed by Tom Mauchahty - Ware, a Kiowa whose family has presented the traditions of the Plains peoples since the 1930s. Tom’s great uncle, noted artist Stephen Mopope, appeared at the Second National Folk Festival in 1935, his father performed at festivals during the 1940s, and Tom began performing at National Festivals in the 1960s. Tom Ware, a noted flute player, brings a troupe from the Kiowa and Comanche nations, who will be performing the Eagle, Hoop, Fancy, and Grass dances, among others. This program is cosponsored by the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution.

JERRY GRCEVICH with TAMBURITZA ORCHESTRA
Tambura music from Pennsylvania
Wednesday, December 8, 2004 at Noon
Coolidge Auditorium

Jerry Grcevich is a master player, composer, and arranger of tambura music, the intricate and virtuosic string-ensemble music of Eastern Europe, notably Croatia and Serbia. For over thirty years he has been a mainstay of tamburitza music in the United States, mastering all of the string instruments, and recording over twenty records, tapes, and CDs. He frequently travels to Croatia to play and gather new material. Grcevich, like his father, from whom he learned, has been elected to the Tamburitza Hall of Fame.

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