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EZTHEWASHINGTONPOST.
FRIDAY,JULY31, 2020Sounds of Hope and
Harmony
Alexandria-based orchestral
touring group Classical Move-
ments continues its Sounds of
Hope and Harmony series
through the month of August and
beyond. On Saturday at 6 and
7:30 p.m. it will host “Prague
Comes to Washington,” a pair of
hour-long programs of arias and
art songs in its freshly pergola’d
“secret garden,” featuring Chilean
baritone Javier Arrey (an alum of
the Castleton Festival and WNO’s
remonikered Cafritz Young Artist
Program); soprano Kaylee Nor-
ris; and pianist Taylor Hutchin-
son. Upcoming installments of
these 100-ticket, socially dis-
tanced soirees this month include
NSO musicians performing
chamber works by Molly Joyce,
Victor Ewald, Andy Akiho, Alvin
Singleton, Zhao Tian and DukeEllington on Aug. 8, and an eve-
ning of grand opera arias sung by
“heldentenor par excellence” Is-
sachah Savage, accompanied by
pianist Joy Schreier on Aug. 15.
Find tickets and more informa-
tion at classicalmovements.com.National Sawdust Digital
Discovery Festival
NYC-based new music incuba-
tor/record label/performance
center National Sawdust is
weathering the turmoil of the
new normal with a robust slate of
exclusive online programming.
Its ongoing Digital Discovery Fes-
tival is a weekly program of live
performances and interviews fea-
turing some of the most adven-
turous players and composers in
the field. Composer Tania León
leads a master class on Friday and
tenor Lawrence Brownlee leads
another on Aug. 7, both withvocalist Helga Davis and Sawdust
co-founder Paola Prestini. On
Thursday, the Tesla Quartet will
perform a 45-minute concert of
string quartet commissions
penned by 12 freelance compos-
ers (including the Baltimore-
based Bonnie Lander), and on
Aug. 18, the exciting young com-
poser and pianist Conrad Tao
plays a program featuring John
Adam’s “China’s Gate” and a set of
original improvisations. Find full
festival schedule and more infor-
mation at live.nationalsaw-
dust.org/digital-discovery-festi-
val.Record highs
Christopher Rouse: Sympho-
ny No. 5 / Supplica / Concerto
for Orchestra, Nashville Sym-
phony, Giancarlo Guerrero
(Naxos)
The late, great Christopher
Rouse was a Pulitzer and Gram-
my-winning composer, a lifelong
Baltimorean, a proud Zeppelin
fan, and a direct product of
Beethoven. His first childhood
encounter with Ludwig’s fifth
marked the beginning of his com-
posing life; and his own fifth,
composed in 2015, m akes for a
stirring homage (especially in the
timpani department) as well as a
miniature survey of his vast
range.
KMRU: “Peel” (Editions
Mego)
This deeply satisfying six-pack
of lush, looping, ambient sound-
scapes fashioned from field re-
cordings by Nairobi-based sound
artist Joseph Kamaru was record-ed in 48 hours.
Thomas Adès and Kirill Ger-
stein: “In Seven Days” ( Myrios
Music)
Adès and Gerstein make one of
the most electrifying pairings of
composer and performer at work
today, and their joined forces
charge this suite of recordings
from Tanglewood and Boston’s
Symphony Hall. Especially so on
the two-piano world premiere of
“Concert Paraphrase on ‘Powder
Her Face,’ ” where the composer
and Gerstein take the dynamic
duo thing to a very literal and
beautiful place.
Suzanne Ciani: “Music for
Denali” (Finders Keepers)
This early (1973) collection of
appropriately icy unheard
themes composed for a documen-
tary chronicling the first descent
by skiers down Alaska’s most for-
midable peak captures Ciani on
her way up, and offers a grand
view of the musical futures she’d
go on to explore — from cavern-
ous drones to frigid tones.
Various Artists: Hildegard
Competition Winners Vol. 1 (Na-
tional Sawdust Tracks)
National Sawdust’s Hildegard
Competition is a mentorship ini-
tiative “highlighting outstanding
trans, female and non-binary
composers in the early stages of
their careers,” and this newly re-
leased compilation from the class
of 2019 collects new works from
Niloufar Nourbakhsh, inti figgis-
vizeuta, Bergrun Snaebjornsdot-
tir, Emma O’Halloran, X. Lee and
Kayla Cashetta.
[email protected]BY MICHAEL ANDOR
BRODEURFaced with a traditional Au-
gust, I’d be recommending not
much more than plenty of sun-
screen and spring water to ac-
company whatever wild vacation
plans you had in the works. Alas,
this is not that, and it may be up to
music to give us escape this sum-
mer.
Luckily, there’s more than
enough music — online, on re-
cord and even in person — to fill
the dog days. Here are a few
late-summer selections.
Met Stars Live
A couple of weeks ago, the
Metropolitan Opera announced
Met Stars Live, new pay-per-view
live-streamed performances
(wait! keep reading) from “opera’s
biggest stars in striking locations
across Europe and the United
States.” If you’ve been stuck with-
in a one-mile radius of your living
room for five months, just about
anywhere counts as a striking
location, and you’re probably get-
ting a little streamed out. But the
inaugural stream earlier this
month by Jonas Kaufmann at-
tained transportive heights from
its location at the Polling Monas-
tery outside of Munich; and its
library’s acoustics were a wel-
come escape from the echo cham-
ber of the average Zoom. On
Saturday at 1 p.m., it’s the cele-
brated soprano Renée Fleming’s
turn, and she’ll sing a program of
Handel (“Endless pleasure, end-
less love,” from “Semele”), Cante-
loube, Strauss, Massenet and Puc-
cini from D.C.’s Dumbarton Oaks
Museum, accompanied by pianist
Robert Ainsley. Forthcoming
highlights from the 12-concert
series include Joyce DiDonato
(Sept. 12); Anna Netrebko (Oct.
10); Pretty Yende and Javier Ca-
marena (Nov. 7); and Bryn Terfel
(Dec. 12). And while you’re there,
it’s a pretty solid weekend for the
Met’s Live in HD series of free,
full-performance broadcasts,
with its 2017 production of Dvor-
ak’s “Rusalka” available Friday, a
“classic telecast” on Saturday of
its 1983 staging of Verdi’s “Er-
nani” starring Leona Mitchell
and Luciano Pavarotti, and on
Sunday, Wagner’s “Die Walküre”
from 2019, with Christine Goerke
as Brünnhilde. Find tickets and
more information at metop-
era.org.
Music
Dog days of summer brings music to you
Classical music will fill
your home with sounds
from around the worldAMANDA ANDRADE-RHOADES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
David Murray gets ready to perform at a socially distanced concert in the “secret garden” of Alexandria’s Rectory in June.GETTY IMAGES
Renée Fleming, seen here performing on July 4, will appear as part
of Met Stars Live — new pay-per-view live-streamed performances.