Newsletters - Spring 1999

NEWS and VIEWS
Spring 1999

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE INTERNET

* The Theatre’s web page has a new address: www.cdre.com/Theatre-Washington-VA. Updating is still a bit of a chore but we try to keep current. Reservations may be made directly from the web page. Please visit. We’d like to hear from you.

* E-mail is fast becoming a favorite way to make reservations for performances at the Theatre. Although it has not yet outdistanced phone reservations, it has surpassed use of snail-mail.

* In response to several suggestions, the Theatre now sends an e-mail announcement in advance of most performances. The Theatre’s e-mail list is not made available to others, and additions and deletions can be made at any time. So if you are not already on the list and would like to receive (blind) copies by e-mail of the Theatre’s announcements of upcoming programs, please get in touch. Send e-mail to TheatreVA@aol.com.

ALL THAT JAZZ

Charlie Byrd and Chuck Redd are scheduled to return to the Theatre in February. Since their last concert here had to be changed at the last minute, we should all keep our fingers crossed that nothing untoward happens this time—that the weather cooperates and we are not buried under a foot of snow.

Later in the spring we welcome for the first time a couple well known on the West Coast—John and Jeanne Pisano. They were dubbed "The Flying Pisanos" by Herb Alpert. John was a founding member of Alpert’s Tijuana Brass. Jeanne, whose voice ranges a remarkable four octaves, "is truly one of the best jazz vocalists on the planet," wrote Jim Fisch in 20th Century Guitar Magazine last March.

BRING YOUR PERFORMANCE TO THE THEATRE’S STAGE

When the Theatre is not occupied for its own presentations, it is sometimes available to others for their events. This is the case with the Christendom College Players’ production of "Much Ado About Nothing" in March. The Theatre is most often rented by the Rappahannock Association for Arts and the Community (RAAC). RAAC presents three live performances at the Theatre this spring, in addition to the regular and much-valued film series which takes place once or twice each month.

CHAMBER MUSIC FROM THE SMITHSONIAN

As the New Year opens, the Smithsonian at Little Washington concert series is half way through its seventh season at the Theatre. Plans for the eighth season, which will begin in September and run into the new millennium, are under way. The Smithsonian Chamber Players, directed by Kenneth Slowik, have brought many wonderful concerts to the Theatre since 1991. Their loyal following draws heavily on residents of Fauquier County and Charlottesville, as well as those closer to Little Washington.

The first of the Smithsonian Chamber Players’ concerts for 1999 is another in "The Brilliance of the Baroque" series in which Kenneth Slowik takes a "Close Look at Musical Masterworks." This time the focus is on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. The program begins with an in-depth discussion of the Brandenburg Concerti as a set, with special emphasis on the seminal Fifth concerto, arguably one of the earliest concerti featuring solo harpsichord.

After the intermission, Slowik and six members of the Smithsonian Chamber Players will perform the Fifth Brandenburg in its entirety. This concert takes place on Sunday, January 24 at 3:30 p.m. Slowik is Artistic Director of the Smithsonian’s Chamber Music Program, and of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute, and Conductor of the Santa Fe Bach Festival.

The second of the 1999 Smithsonian at Little Washington concerts is on May 15, when Slowik is joined by baritone James Frederick Weaver in a performance of Schubert’s glorious song cycle Die schöne Müllerin ("The Lovely Maid Of the Mill"). Weaver has performed with many of the finest oratorio and chamber music groups in North America and Europe.

RUSSIAN SPRING

Five years ago this fall, the stage at the Theatre was filled with musicians playing balalaikas, domras and other instruments characteristic of Russian folk orchestras. This April The Washington Balalaika Society returns to the Theatre with its haunting and poignant music, and distinguished soloists. The balalaika orchestra has performed at the Kennedy Center, Constitution Hall, the Smithsonian Institution and, since its last visit here, also at Carnegie Hall in New York.