“On Wednesday night, the National Symphony Orchestra ventured out of the Kennedy Center into the wide world of Washington,” writes Anne Midgette in Monday’s (1/9) Washington Post. “The chamber concert that the orchestra’s concertmaster, Nurit Bar-Josef, and three colleagues played that night was the official start of the sixth annual iteration of NSO in Your Neighborhood, the community initiative, continuing through Monday, that brings the orchestra to schools, coffee shops, nursing homes and community centers in the city—this year, to venues in Southeast and Southwest…. ‘In order to have impact, there needs to be consistency,’ says Warren G. Williams, the NSO’s manager of community relations…. The orchestra, he said, is considering a year-round version of NSO in Your Neighborhood involving chamber concerts with some of the orchestra’s partners, such as the restaurant/coffee shop Busboys and Poets, where a small group of musicians played as part of a poetry slam last year…. In addition, and very smartly, the orchestra is also recognizing the interactive potential of the community relationships it’s developing…. [At] Wednesday night’s program … [of] Claude Bolling’s Suite for Violin and Jazz Piano Trio … the audience broke into appreciative applause between movements and when it was over.”
Posted January 10, 2017
