Detailed programming has been announced for the inaugural SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestra from March 27 to April 1 featuring concerts at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and activities throughout Washington, D.C. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will perform Christopher Theofanidis’s Creation/Creator, a multimedia oratorio featuring narration, vocal soloists, and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, led by Music Director Robert Spano. Spano and Norman MacKenzie, ASO Director of Choruses, will co-lead a free choral conducting workshop at the Wonder Bread Factory. The Boulder Philharmonic’s “Nature and Music” theme encompasses a concert featuring Stephen Lias’s All the Songs that Nature Sings, a “Guided Musical Hike” led by naturalist Dave Sutherland, and free pop-up concerts around the Tidal Basin. The Brooklyn-based orchestral collective The Knights will be joined by singer/songwriter Christina Courtin and the San Francisco Girls Choir for works by Brahms, Vivaldi, Lisa Bielawa, Aaron Jay Kernis, and excerpts from a Knights collaborative composition. Knights musicians will mentor young musicians through participatory side-by-sides and informal career conversations. The North Carolina Symphony will perform an all-American program featuring composers with ties to North Carolina: Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Mason Bates, and Robert Ward. The North Carolina Symphony will engage with local D.C. schools and will perform an “unCHAMBERed” concert at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras is co-sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington Performing Arts and presented in cooperation with the League of American Orchestras. Click here for a complete breakdown of 2017 SHIFT Festival events.
Posted March 22, 2017
