October 11, 1995

Contact: Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940
Concert Line: (202) 707-5502

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Library of Congress Opens 70th Anniversary Concert Season with Three Premieres, Festival of American Music

The Library of Congress will open its 1995-96 season in October with a three-concert festival featuring music by American composers. New works from some of the most respected American composers in classical music will be performed by the Verdehr Trio, conductor David Amram, and the California E.A.R. Unit. All concerts are free and will take place in the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, because the Library's Coolidge Auditorium is under renovation until the Fall of 1997.

The season begins Sunday, Oct. 22, at 2:00 p.m., with the Verdehr Trio violinist Walter Verdehr, clarinettist Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, and pianist Gary Kirkpatrick. The Verdehr Trio has developed a wide range of works for violin, clarinet, and piano through research and commissions. For this concert, the group will premiere Trio, by eminent composer David Diamond, commissioned by the Library's Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. The group will also perform works by Biggs, Arutiunian, Larsen, and Hoag.

David Amram has been a member of the American composer elite for nearly 30 years, ever since he was named the New York Philharmonic's first composer-in-residence in 1966. Since then, his music has enhanced concert programs the world over. On Sunday, Oct. 22, at 7:30 p.m., he will conduct the premiere of his A Little Rebellion: Thomas Jefferson, a work scored for narrator, woodwind quintet, and string orchestra. It was commissioned by the Carolyn Royall Just Fund in the Library of Congress. Mr. Amram will conduct world-renowned actor E. G. Marshall and members of the National Symphony Orchestra in this new work. The program will also include other works by Mr. Amram as well as music of Still, Chavez, MacMillan, and Schickele.

As ensemble-in-residence at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California E.A.R. Unit is known for imaginative programming and definitive performances of avant garde works, 20th century classics, and multimedia collaborations. On Monday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m., the E.A.R. Unit comes to the Terrace Theater with Road Movies, a new work for violin and keyboard by Nixon in China composer John Adams, commissioned by the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress. The ensemble will also perform music by Unit member Arthur Jarvinen, as well as works by Terry Riley, Louis Andriessen, and Earl Kim.

The 1995-1996 season marks the 70th anniversary of the Music Division's distinguished chamber music series, which has set international standards for presenting, commissioning and broadcasting since 1925. The series continues a tradition begun by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who donated funds for the Library's acoustically superb Coolidge Auditorium and established a foundation to support the performance and composition of chamber music at the Library.

Another important patron, Gertrude Clarke Whittall, gave the Library five Stradivari instruments in the mid-1930s and created an endowment to provide for their use in Library of Congress performances and broadcasts.

All Library of Congress concerts are free and open to the public. Performances at the Terrace Theater will require tickets, however. Tickets, two per person, will be given out at the entrance to the Terrace Theater, 90 minutes before the concert begins. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

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PR 95-135
10/11/95
ISSN 0731-3527