Free Bach Brandenburg concert, Wednesday, St. John's, Lafayette Square

Mary Bowden/Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Classical trumpeter Mary Bowden will join the 20 members of the U.S. Air Force Strings Ensemble Wednesday to play Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in a free noontime concert at St. John's Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square.

Ms. Bowden, who has accompanied Adele on tour, began fulltime college music studies at the age of 14. Gramaphone has called her "brilliant" and “radiant in new repertoire for trumpet,” an adaptation of "radiant" which appears in the title of her recently released first album, "Radiance."  

A worldwide performer, Ms. Bowden has placed first in many competitions.

 The U.S. Air Force Strings Ensemble

Air Force Strings is one of six musical ensembles of the U.S. Air Force Band. The Strings' portfolio includes wide-ranging styles from classical to rock, bluegrass, Broadway, and patriotic selections, played without a conductor. 


Also on Wednesday's program is "Serenade for String" by George Antheil (1900-1959), an avante-garde composer and inventor (Wikipedia).

The concert is the last of this year's First Wednesday Concerts series at St. John's.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

St. John's was founded in 1815 and is known to Washington residents as the yellow church at Lafayette Square. It's often called the “Church of the Presidents” since beginning with President James Madison, who was president from 1809 to 1817, every president has attended services at the church. 

A plaque at the rear of St. John's designates the pew where President Abraham Lincoln often sat when he stopped by the church during the Civil War. 

Benjamin Latrobe, the "father of American architecture" who designed the U.S. Capitol and the White House porticos, created the plan for St. John's Church using a Greek cross.  
 
The church bell, which weighs almost 1,000 pounds, was cast by Paul Revere's son, Joseph, in 1822 and hung at the church that year where it has rung since. Wikipedia says two accounts report that whenever the bell rings on the occasion of the death of a notable person, six male ghosts appear at the president's pew at midnight and quickly disappear. (Who's counting?) 

Dolley Madison, wife of President Madison, was baptized and confirmed at St. John's which is "one of the few original remaining buildings left near Lafayette Park today,"
according to the National Park Service.

Following tradition, President Donald J. Trump and his family began his presidency on the morning of January 20, 2017 with private services at St. John's.

For those on lunch break, food trucks are located nearby at Farragut Square.
 
Another concert not to miss!
 
Who:  Mary Bowden and the U.S. Air Force Strings presenting Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and Antheil's "Serenade for Strings"

What: First Wednesday Concerts

When: 12:10 p.m., June 7, 2017

Where: St. John’s, Lafayette Square, 1525 H Street, NW, at the corner of 16th, Washington, D.C. 20005

How much: No charge

Duration: About 35 minutes

Wheelchair accessible

Metro stations: McPherson Square (White House exit), Farragut North, or Farragut West

For more information: Contact Michael Lodico, St. John's director of music ministry and organist, 202-270-6265 or Michael.Lodico@stjohns-dc.org.
  
patricialesli@gmail.com

Today is the last day for Della Robbia in the U.S. and Washington

Outside the West Garden Court, the Della Robbia exhibition welcomes visitors at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Giovanni della Robbia (1469-1529-1530), Resurrection of Christ, 1520-1525, loaned by the Brooklyn Museum.  Hundreds of years ago this hung on a garden gate at the Antinoris' villa near Florence, Italy, the family who helped sponsor the exhibition and made possible the year-long conservation project of Resurrection which was moved for the first time in more than 100 years from Brooklyn for the show. The sculpture is 12 feet wide.  (Writer's note:  These photos do not convey the size, scope, and depth of these pieces.)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), Prudence, c. 1475, Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is the cover of the catalog, a double-faced head who gazes into the future on the left while an old man on the right who bears a resemblance to Prudence, considers the past, his beard mixing with her hair. The snake here is "a biblical symbol of wisdom," the label says.  The diameter is about 5'4"/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), Bust of a Boy, 1475, Museo Nazionale del Bargello which welcomes visitors to the exhibition.  The boy glances to his left, yearning to hear what is happening behind him where visitors chat and admire The Visitation, c. 1445 by Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) The Visitation, c. 1445, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia. The National Gallery of Art says The Visitation is "a masterpiece of 15th-century art in any medium" which came to the U.S. for the first trip for this exhibition.

"The nearly life-size composition depicts the emotional moment from the Gospel of Luke when the pregnant Virgin Mary is welcomed by her elderly cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with St. John the Baptist. Formed fully in the round, the two figures were fired in four individual pieces that fit securely together," the National Gallery explains/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) The Visitation, c. 1445, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) The Visitation, c. 1445, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) The Visitation, c. 1445, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), Adoration of the Christ Child (the Ruskin Madonna), after 1477, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.  Known as the Ruskin Madonna due to its ownership by the writer and art critic, John Ruskin (1819-1900) who called it "quite one of the most precious things I have." In his study Adoration hung over the mantle/Photo by Patricia Leslie

From left are works by Girolamo della Robbia (1488-1566): the Bust of a Man, 1526-1535, Bust of a Woman, about 1530, Francis I (1494-1547), King of France, 1529, and Bust of a Classical Hero or Emperor, c. 1530. Lenders were the J. Paul Getty Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie

These five feet tall saints made by a Della Robbia competitor, Santi Buglioni (1494-1576) "are impressive for their scale and charismatic presence," according to the National Gallery, "but proved difficult to fire, as indicated by the large cracks and peculiarities visible in the glazed surfaces." Lenders were an American private collector, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Gallerie degli Uffizi/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Andrea della Robbia, Rondel with Head of a Youth, c. 1470-1480, Detroit Institute of Arts/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia the Younger, 1475-1548, Adoring Angel, 1510-1515, private collection. This artist is called "the younger" to distinguish him from his uncle, the Della Robbia art style founder /Photo by Patricia Leslie

Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), Cherub, c. 1500, private collection. This is one of two similar statues, both likely made for the frame of a church.  Andrea and his wife had 12 children and he was well versed in their expressions, the label copy notes/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Giovanni della Robbia (1469-1529-1530), Dovizia (Abundance), c. 1520, Minneapolis Institute of Art. Note the similarities with Judith (below) which stands at the entrance to the exhibition with Dovizia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Giovanni della Robbia (1469-1529/1530), Judith, c. 1520, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The biblical Judith, who risked her life to save Florence, holds the head of the enemy commander Holofernes, whom she enticed with wine/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) The Visitation, c. 1445, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) The Visitation, c. 1445, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Today is the last day of display at the National Gallery of Art

and in the United States of the colorful Italian Renaissance terra cotta sculptures of the famously known Della Robbia.

In Italy the pieces graced public spaces, gardens, courtyards, and private homes, including hundreds of years later, some American homes whose owners, like Isabella Stewart Gardner of Boston, traveled abroad and collected them.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  organized the 40 pieces in the show which hung there first before coming to Washington.

  

Three generations of Della Robbia artists are associated with the art form beginning with the inventor, Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) who founded the glazing technique that combined baked clay with brilliant colors to produce the pieces which have endured 600 years and more.

Following Luca were his nephew, Andrea (1435-1525) and Andrea's sons, Giovanni (1469-1529/1530) and  Girolamo (1488-1566).  Some of the show's art comes from competitors

Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence is the title of the 176-paged catalog with 130 color pictures, many which cover entire pages. Written by Marietta Cambareri, a senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and one of the two curators for the show with the National Gallery's Alison Luchs, the book is available at the Gallery's gift shops or here.

The American people are grateful to the sponsors which made the exhibition possible including the Altria Group on behalf of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, the Antinori family, Sally Engelhard Pingree, the Charles Engelhard Foundation, the Buffy and William Cafritz Family Foundation, and the Exhibition Circle for their generous support."

 

What: Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence

When: The National Gallery of Art is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday. The exhibition closes today.

Where: West Building, the National Gallery of Art, between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission charge: None

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215

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Folger's 'Timon of Athens,' a dark tale

 
Ian Merrill Peakes is surrounded by creditors in Timon of Athens now at the Folger/Photo by Theresa Wood


If this is a difficult William Shakespeare play, those watching at the Folger Theatre never let on, for they sat in rapt suspension on the edges of their seats, glued to the manipulations and greed of "friends" on stage who surround Timon of Athens. 

Timon is the sun around whom mankind swirls until it doesn't.

By a series of stealthy, slow motions, the evildoers abandon their money source, Timon, when they learn they cannot extract more from him who gives to them willfully, while he ignores warning signs from the only truthful person of the lot, his faithful steward, Flavius, who observes Timon's soaring debts.

"Every man has his fault, and honesty is his," claims Lucullus, one of the users. 

 And then what? 

Will his pals dole out a wee bit to help their friend survive after all he has given to them? 

Not on their lives.

“Has friendship such a faint and milky heart, It turns in less than two nights?” a servant asks. 

When truth finally arrives as Flavius foretold, Timon cannot take it any more and escapes to the forest to seek solace, find answers, and berate himself, all the while experiencing increasing enmity of all that is mankind.

"Timon will to the woods, where he shall find
Th’unkindest beast more kinder than mankind," he says

But even in solitude, in the woods, his pessimism prevails to envelop nature's beauty which Timon is unable to see, consumed by his detest of all things living. In his new environment he projects man's dishonesty and deceit upon his surroundings.

Has it come to this?

 Ian Merrill Peakes stars in Timon of Athens now at the Folger/Photo by Theresa Wood

At Opera Lafayette last night I actually met a misanthrope like Timon!  One I never would have recognized had I had not seen the play and read more about the man.  I was stunned to realize these people actually exist. (Call me naive.) She, a scientist for EPA (is it any wonder?), who said to a stranger she could never see a play again because all human beings are the same, lowlifes and cunning, who take her down.  ("Down"?  Further than she is?)  

Back to "make believe" at the Folger: Robert Richmond directs Ian Merrill Peakes as Timon in a knockout performance.

The play's futuristic, colored lighting in strings of squares and rectangles (by Andrew Griffin) outline the dark, stark set (by Tony Cisek) which is designed like a cold, bizarre space ship, the inside of a tomb, lacking any color save the blue coats (the tomb's quilted linings) worn by unearthly beings on the make, occupiers of the premises. 

Haunting sounds full of tension and edge (by Matt Otto)  echo throughout this underground aboveground.

Why host one of the master's most unpopular plays? An unfinished play, too.  It's not all about the money.

This town is full of Shakespeare lovers, and the near sellouts of the remaining play nights are proof.

According to program notes, Timon has gained traction in the last 20 years. Shakespeare and his likely collaborator, Thomas Middleton, wrote it probably between 1605 and 1606 about the time King James I and the upper classes were spending wildly, heavily in debt, when Shakespeare was working on Anthony and Cleopatra.

Wikipedia says there is no evidence Timon was performed during Shakespeare's lifetime (1564-1616). 

Shakespeare partially derived his tale from Plutarch's Lives, one of his favorite sources, which says Timon from Athens had a reputation as a misanthropist. His father was a rich man who bestowed gifts upon friends who left when the money ran out, and Timon found himself working in the fields.

Supposedly, Timonium, Maryland up the road about an hour, was named by a woman in mourning after her wealthy landowner of a husband died at a young age.  The town is the burial site of Vice President Spiro Agnew (1918-1996) who served under President Richard Nixon before Agnew resigned in disgrace, another tragedy,  but I digress.

Notable authors who have utilized Timon are Thomas Hardy, Karl Marx, Charlotte Bronte, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dickens, and Vladimir Nabokov who used a portion for his book title:

"The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun," Timon says.

 Herman Melville considered Timon "to be among the most profound of Shakespeare's plays," according to Wikipedia. That it is!

Also starring are Louis Butelli, Aliyah Caldwell, Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, John Floyd, Amanda Forstrom, Sean Fri, Eric Hissom, Andhy Mendez, Antoineet Robinson, Michael Dix Thomas, and Kathryn Tkel.

Members of the creative team include Mariah Hale, costumes; Francesca Talenti, projection; Michele Osherow, resident dramaturg; Diane Healy, production stage manager; Megan Ball, assistant stage manager, Joe Isenberg, fight director, Michele Osherow, resident dramaturg, and Janet Alexander Griffin, artistic producer.

This is the last of the Folger's productions for the 2016-17 series. Anthony and Cleopatra opens next year's season on October 10, 2017 under Mr. Richmond's direction.

What: Timon of Athens

When: Now through June 11, 2017

Where: Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol Street, S. E. Washington, D.C. 20003

Tickets: Buy online, by phone (at 202-544-7077 from 12 to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday with extended hours on performance days), or at the box office (with the same hours as phone service). Tickets start at $25 with discounts for groups, students, seniors, military, and educators.

Metro station: Capitol South or Union Station

For more information: 202-544-4600 or info@folger.edu

patricialesli@gmail.com