DC Artswatch: Anniversaries, NSO Season, Other News
By • August 20, 2026 0 364
NMAAHC Marks 1st Decade With ‘The Reunion’
From Sept. 24 to Sept. 27, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture — which opened on Sept. 24, 2016 — will convene “The Reunion,” a 10th anniversary celebration. Events include: “Understanding America: 10 Years of Excellence” on Friday, a conversation with Founding Director and Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, moderated by CNN’s Laura Coates; “The Purple Ball: Echoes of the Pearl” on Saturday, a Bill Bellamy-hosted fundraiser at the Wharf featuring Jermaine Dupri and DJ D-Nice; and “Violet Vibes: A Community Celebration” on Sunday, with daylong programming on the Wharf grounds. Guests are encouraged to don NMAAHC’s signature color: purple.
NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling Retiring
Susan Fisher Sterling, Alice West Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts since 2008, will retire at the end of this year. Dr. Sterling, who earned her art history Ph.D. at Princeton, joined NMWA as an associate curator in 1988, the year after the museum, founded by Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, opened in a former Masonic temple at 1250 New York Ave. NW. She later served as NMWA’s curator of modern and contemporary art, chief curator and deputy director. The world’s first institution dedicated to championing women through the arts, the museum will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2027.
The Washington Chorus Names Executive Director
The Washington Chorus has appointed Krista Bradley as its executive director. A former Thomas Circle Singers alto and board president, Bradley, also a visual artist, has a B.A. in literature and society from Brown. She was previously director of programs and resources at the Association of Performing Arts Professionals and executive and artistic director of BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Maryland. The chorus will celebrate its 65th anniversary on Feb. 27, 2027, at the concert “A Song Flung Up to Heaven,” conducted by Artistic Director Eugene Rogers and narrated by Denyce Graves, at DAR Constitution Hall.
National Symphony to Present Six-Venue Season
With the Kennedy Center’s Trump-led two-year closure still blocked in court at press time, the National Symphony Orchestra announced its 96th season earlier this week, months later than usual. Music Director Gianandrea Noseda will conduct the opening concert on Sept. 26 at Strathmore. Sixty performances will take place there and at five other venues: George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, George Mason University’s Center for the Arts, Northern Virginia Community College’s Schlesinger Center, the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the Lincoln Theatre. “The NSO will effectively be a touring ensemble,” noted the Washington Post, “with concerts planned in April in California, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada and Oklahoma.”
New Atlas Resident Partner: Constellation Theatre
Formerly based at Source Theatre, sold to restaurant operators in August of 2025, Constellation Theatre will officially become a resident arts partner of the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE on Sept. 1. During its 20th anniversary season, Constellation will present PigPen Theatre’s “The Old Man and the Old Moon” from Nov. 19 to Dec. 13 in the 180-seat Sprenger Theater and Philip Dawkins’s musical fable “Failure: A Love Story” from May 14 to June 13 in Lab II, an 80-seat black box theater. The Atlas’s other resident arts partners are Capital City Symphony, Mosaic Theater Company, Irish contemporary arts presenter Solas Nua and Visionaries of the Creative Arts (VOCA), a nonprofit “supporting the works of the Deaf, DeafBlind, Deaf+ and Hard-of-Hearing BIPOC artists.”
The Washington Ballet, Round House Theatre Hit 50
Two area cultural mainstays will soon celebrate their golden anniversaries. Launched in a one-time Silver Spring elementary school, Bethesda’s Round House Theatre is marking the milestone with 50 for 50, a series of 50 free events, including classes, backstage experiences and “Round House Rewind” readings — the first, of Alice Childress’s “The Wedding Band,” on Sept. 17. The Washington Ballet, initiated by Mary Day three decades after she and Lisa Gardiner founded the Washington School of Ballet, will hold a 50 Forward Celebration featuring go-go band Black Alley on Sept. 26 at the National Union Building on F Street NW.
