The Phillips Collection has returned to live concerts, but for the first time in the history of music at the Phillips, all concerts will be livestreamed, bringing the storied intimacy of performances from the Music Room to wherever you are. This season is characteristically eclectic, welcoming a broad range of musical styles, DC-debut performances, and special new commissions exploring the connections between visual art and music. For virtual tickets ($10-$15), visit Phillips.
Audiences will encounter a season full of musical exploration that expands ideas of what ‘classical’ music is, including world premieres of new commissions that activate artworks from the permanent collection in new ways.
Continuing founder Duncan Phillips’s exploration of the dialogues between visual art and music, the 81st season of Phillips Music includes four world premieres of newly commissioned musical works that respond to visual art through music and sound. Indeed, this Sunday October 10, 2021, is the Phillips debut of the acclaimed Aizuri Quartet who will present two new commissions by composers Lembit Beecher and Paul Wiancko inspired by the art of Alma Thomas and Sam Gilliam.
On November 14, 2021, the Attacca Quartet returns to the Phillips for the world premiere commission by composer Gabriel Kahane. Kahane explores themes of technology and surveillance capitalism in a new work for string quartet titled Walter Benjamin Non-Fungible Token. On January 30, 2022, Pianist Conrad Tao returns to the Phillips with cellist of the JACK Quartet, Jay Campbell, for the DC-debut of a new work co-commissioned by the Phillips from composer Catherine Lamb. The Additive Arrow, for synthesizer and cello, is a meditative exploration of space between instruments, ears, and open space, and on March 20, 2022 is the rescheduled world premiere of a new work by Brazilian/American composer Marcos Balter, written for countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and the Shanghai Quartet. The new work, titled “Therapy,” explores concepts of catharsis and the healing potential of creativity, anchored with text from Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons” and inspired by Alfonso Ossorio’s Recovery Drawings from the permanent collection.
Concert Schedule
Sunday, October 17: Min Kwon, solo piano Sunday, October 24: Kit Armstrong, solo piano
Sunday, October 31: Aaron Diehl and Tyshawn Sorey, piano and percussion
Sunday, November 7, Johnny Gandelsman, solo violin
Sunday, November 14: Attacca Quartet
Sunday, November 21: Washington National Opera Cafritz Young Artists Sunday, December 5: Parker Ramsey, solo harp
Sunday, January 9: Tabea Debus and Paul Morton, recorder, theorbo and guitar
Sunday, January 16: Zoie Reams, mezzo-soprano
Thursday, January 20: Leading International Composers: Tania León
Sunday, January 30: Conrad Tao and Jay Campbell, piano, synthesizer and cello
Sunday, February 6: David Greilsammer, solo piano
Sunday, February 20: Stella Chen and friends, violin and ensemble
Sunday, February 27: Maki Namekawa, solo piano
Sunday, March 6: Ensemble Jupiter Sunday, March 13: Mishka Rushdie Momen
Sunday, March 20: Shanghai Quartet and Anthony Roth Costanzo, string quartet and countertenor
Sunday, March 27: Ensemble Variances
Sunday, April 3: Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn, two pianos
Sunday, April 10: Sebastian Knauer, solo piano
Sunday, April 17: Leila Josefowicz, solo violin
Sunday, April 24: Vision Duo, violin and marimba
Sunday, May 1: Jonathan Biss, solo piano
Sunday, May 8: Karim Sulayman, tenor and piano
for more info, visit Phillips Music
Cover Photo: Concert from the 2020/21 series of Leading International Composers in the Phillips galleries with the centennial exhibition Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century. Featuring Love in Exile: Vijay Iyer, Arooj Aftab, and Shahzad Ismaily. Still shot from video by Dominic Mann