D.C. ArtsWatch
By • June 10, 2025 0 66
Georgetown’s Tudor Place Gets Public History Award
Courtesy Tudor Place.
Tudor Place Historic House & Garden received the National Council on Public History’s Outstanding Public History Project Award for the Georgetown historic site’s 2024 installation and tour: “Ancestral Spaces: People of African Descent at Tudor Place.” This reimagining of the traditional house tour resulted from a collaboration by Curator Rob DeHart with the descendant community and a program-specific advisory committee.
Woolly Mammoth Artistic Director Leaves for Lincoln Center
Maria Goyanes. Courtesy Woolly Mammoth.
After seven years as artistic director, Maria Manuela Goyanes has left Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company to become a producer at New York’s Lincoln Center Theater and artistic director of its LCT3 programming initiative. In a press release, Managing Director Kimberly Douglas called Goyanes “an incredible visionary and one of the most tenacious advocates for bringing innovative and thought-provoking new work to Washington, D.C.”
Maria Mathieson Starts as Executive Director at Choral Arts
Maria Mathieson. Courtesy Choral Arts Society.
Maria Mathieson began a new role as executive director of the Choral Arts Society of Washington on May 27. She previously served as executive director of the Peabody Preparatory, the noncredit division of Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and as head of music education at Levine Music in D.C. Mathieson holds MBA degrees from the Global Leaders Institute and the University of Maryland Global Campus.
Kara Blond Is New Director of SITES | Affiliations
Kara Blond. Courtesy Smithsonian.
Kara Blond is the new director of Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations, overseeing the Smithsonian’s efforts to share its content through traveling exhibitions and supporting collaborations among partner museums and cultural organizations. As executive for presidential libraries at the National Archives and Records Administration, she managed a system of 16 presidential libraries and museums.
Education, Curatorial Hires at Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection announced two new appointments: Tiffany McGettigan as chief of education and responsive learning and Dr. Clarisse Fava-Piz as curator of modern art. McGettigan, a former DC Public Schools teacher who served as the Hirshhorn Museum’s head of education, started on May 5; Fava-Piz, previously the Denver Art Museum’s associate curator of European and American art before 1900, will begin on July 28.
New Board President, Members at Capital Jewish Museum
Chris Wolf. Courtesy Capital Jewish Museum.
Earlier this year, the board of the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum voted to approve a new president, Chris Wolf, and three additional members: Tracy Reichman Kalik, Dr. Diane Webber and Jeff Yablon. Wolf, a fourth-generation Washingtonian, practiced law in D.C. for 40 years, retiring as partner at Hogan Lovells US. He has served on many other boards, including both the national and local boards of the Anti-Defamation League.
ICYMI in the arts this month …
By Mark Edelman
June, as Oscar Hammerstein put it, is busting out all over. As the temperatures climb, why not spend a cool summer night at one of these great DMV theaters?
Bucoy-Calavan’s Vision: Choral Arts as the Ambassador Chorus
By Richard Selden
Along with excerpts from (as a social media post put it) “all the choral bangers” — Handel’s “Messiah,” Beethoven’s Ninth, the Mozart, Brahms and Verdi Requiems and Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” — the Choral Arts Society of Washington’s diamond jubilee concert on June 15 will feature a commissioned world premiere: “To Imagine Creation” by Filipino Chinese composer Saunder Choi. Speaking at The Georgetowner’s May 22 Cultural Leadership Breakfast at 1310 Kitchen and Bar, Choral Arts Artistic Director Marie Bucoy-Calavan said she told Choi she had something like a Disney fireworks show in mind.
