Weekly Arts Round Up, April 22, 2021
By • April 22, 2021 0 905
Tomorrow is Shakespeare’s birthday and Sunday is Ella Fitzgerald’s. Sign up for the National Sporting Library & Museum’s online program on brook trout next Thursday and you may win a sample of dry flies. The headings below are linked to the websites of the sponsoring organizations.
Folger Shakespeare Library: Virtual Birthday Party
The Folger Shakespeare Library is hosting “Shakespeare’s Birthday at Home,” a virtual 457th birthday party for William Shakespeare, on April 23. Using the hashtag #ShareYourShakespeare, the Immortal Bard’s friends and fans of all ages are invited to post costumed selfies, artwork, individual and group readings (of Shakespeare speeches, scenes and sonnets or your own) and photos (from a birthday party for Will at your house?) on social media. At 9 p.m., PBS Great Performances will premiere a contemporary rendering of “Romeo and Juliet,” directed by Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Simon Godwin for London’s National Theatre. In addition, the Folger’s 2008 production of “Macbeth,” co-directed by Teller and Aaron Posner, is available on the Folger’s YouTube channel, along with special features and interviews with the cast and creative team.
President Lincoln’s Cottage: Bicycle Tours
Guided bicycle tours tracing Abraham Lincoln’s three-mile morning commute as president from his Petworth cottage to the White House will take place, rain or shine, on April 24 and May 1 at 10 a.m. After an introduction at President Lincoln’s Cottage, 140 Rock Creek Church Road, each tour will retrace the route Lincoln took by horse or carriage, stopping at places of note for bits of history. Participants, who should check in under the tent just outside of the Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center, must supply their own bikes, maintain social distancing and wear face masks (unless under age 3). Tickets are $45.
Dumbarton Oaks: Streamed Concert
Clarinetist Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s first African American principal player, and pianist Anna Polonsky, a Vassar College faculty member with degrees from Curtis and Juilliard, are the featured performers in a concert recorded in the music room at Dumbarton Oaks and made available for streaming starting on April 24 at 2 p.m. On the program are works by Schumann, Brahms, former Tanglewood composition fellow James Lee III and former Dumbarton Oaks Early-Career Musician in Residence Jessie Montgomery. The free concert will remain accessible until April 30 at 2 p.m.
Blues Alley: Ella Fitzgerald Competition
Performances by the five finalists in the fourth annual Ella Fitzgerald Competition — Naledi Masilo of South Africa, Ariana Stefanidis of New York, Atrin Madani of Germany, Lucy Wijnands of Kansas City and Taisha Estrada of Washington, D.C. — will be broadcast from the National Press Club on April 24 from 5 to 9:30 p.m. This year’s judges are Alison Crockett of George Washington University, Darden Purcell of George Mason University and Jessica Boykin-Settles of Howard University. Members of the Blues Alley Youth Orchestra will also perform. Admission is free, with donations strongly encouraged.
Russian Chamber Art Society: Online Program
Russian Tea Time with Vera, the monthly series hosted by Russian Chamber Art Society Artistic Director Vera Danchenko-Stern, will continue on April 25 at 3 p.m. with an online program on the legacy of prerevolutionary Russian Jewish composers. Danchenko-Stern and her guests will explore and celebrate their works and the traditions surrounding them. Tickets are $15.
American Indian Museum: Virtual Landscape Tour
On April 27 from 10 to 11:15 a.m., Smithsonian Gardens horticulturist Christine Price-Abelow will lead a virtual tour of the spring landscape at the National Museum of the American Indian for Smithsonian Associates. The tour will provide an overview of the museum’s landscape and its evolution over the last 15 years, highlight some of the plants native to the Piedmont region and visit the grounds surrounding the National Native American Veterans Memorial, which opened in November of 2020. Tickets are $25 ($20 for members).
Hirshhorn Museum: Online Conversation
In a free online conversation, “On Art and Eco-Trauma,” on April 28 at 7 p.m., Marina Isgro, the Hirshhorn Museum’s associate curator of media and performance art, and Cuban American artist Teresita Fernández will discuss how Fernández brings together concepts, materials, rigorous research and evocative imagery in her immersive sculptural installations and monumental public projects. In these works, using gold, malachite, graphite, iron ore and other minerals that have loaded ties to colonization, Fernández exposes the hidden histories of violence embedded in the landscape. This program will be available on YouTube and Facebook and via Zoom.Advance registration is required for Zoom participation, which will allow participants to ask questions.
Sporting Library & Museum: Online Program
On April 29 at 6 p.m., the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Virginia, will present an online program, “Brook Trout: Gems of the Piedmont,” at which Claire Catlett and Celia Vuocolo of the Piedmont Environmental Council will discuss their work with partner organizations, local landowners and state and federal agencies to insure the survival of this once wide-ranging species. One participant will be randomly selected to win a sample of dry flies. Admission is $10 (free for members).
DC Jazz Festival: International Jazz Day
The DC Jazz Festival will celebrate International Jazz Day 2021 on April 30 at 3 p.m. with performances on Facebook Live by Grammy-winning alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett and D.C.-based vocalist and pianist Aaron Myers. Garrett and Myers will also be interviewed by Sunny Sumter and Willard Jenkins, the festival’s executive director and artistic director. Admission is free.
Glenstone, the museum of postwar art founded by Emily and Mitchell Rales in Potomac, Maryland, has partially reopened with an exhibition of more than 70 works — including paintings, story quilts and political posters — by Faith Ringgold (exhibition end-date TBA). Hours are Thursday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The next release of free, timed-entry tickets will occur on May 1 at 10 a.m. The Pavilions section of the museum will reopen on May 6 with, among other works, chalkboard drawings by Tacita Dean, sculptures by Cy Twombly and the first installation at Glenstone of work by Glenn Ligon. The arrival hall is open, providing restroom access and a water bottle refill station, as is the bookstore. Masks are required; the maximum group size is five.
