Department of Performing Arts

The Music Program’s Friday Music Series is a free concert series featuring artists of regional, national and international acclaim. Concerts take place Fridays at 1:15 in McNeir Hall at Georgetown University (unless otherwise indicated).

---

Georgetown University Music Program
Friday Music Series Fall Events


Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Composers, Performers & Their Critics
Co-sponsored by Lauinger Library
Vasily Popov, cello
Ralitza Patcheva, piano
Anna Celenza and Anthony DelDonna, narrators
This narrated program features works by Brahms, Debussy, Schumann and Liszt related to an exhibition of autograph manuscripts on display in the Leon Robbin Gallery in Lauinger Library. Reception to follow in the Murray Room, on the fifth floor of Lauinger Library.

Learn more about the "Composers, Performers and Their Critics" exhibit from Lauinger's special collections, offered in conjunction with this performance, and on display through February 5, 2010.

---

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.
Masterclass: Dan Franklin Smith, piano
Prior to his afternoon recital, Pianist Dan Franklin Smith, who has performed at venues such as The National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City, leads a masterclass with Georgetown University students, open to the public for observation.

---

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Dan Franklin Smith, piano
Known for his brilliant technique and breathtaking musical sensitivity, pianist Dan Franklin Smith has performed at venues such as The National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. His program includes works by Chopin, Copland, Gershwin, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Andre Previn and Dave Brubeck.

---

Friday, October 2, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
David Taylor, trombone
Daniel Schnyder, saxophone
Grammy-winning bass trombonist David Taylor, called by The New York Times “a terrific player — with agility, sure intonation, personal pizzazz,” has appeared and recorded with a diverse range of acclaimed artists including Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Wynton Marsalis., Barbara Streisand, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin. Renowned saxophonist and composer Daniel Schnyder’s “superlatively elegant” playing (Financial Times) shines in a “rare mix of high art and high spirits” (Cadence). Together Taylor and Schnyder have toured Europe and Australia as members of a trio, and they playfully bridge musical worlds, drawing inspiration from classical, jazz, Latin, and Middle Eastern styles.

---

Friday, October 16, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Anastasia Pike, harp
C. Paul Heins, piano
Praised for her “outstanding musical talent,” Capital City Symphony Orchestra principal harpist Anastasia (“Anna”) Pike has performed on national television and in venues including Baltimore’s Lyric Opera House, Boston’s Jordan Hall, and New York’s Lincoln Center. Her primary instructors were the late Grammy award-winning Cleveland Orchestra principal harpist Alice Chalifoux and former National Symphony Orchestra harpist Jeanne Chalifoux. Pike teaches at Columbia University, where she will also complete her doctorate in May 2010. She will be performing a program of works by Debussy, Scarlatti, Saint-Saëns and Salzedo with Georgetown University professor C. Paul Heins.

---

Friday, October 23, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Charles West, clarinet
Dmitri Shteinberg, piano
Charles West has been called one of the most recorded clarinetists in American academia and can be heard on numerous labels including a 1993 Grammy Award-winning Telarc CD. He has served as president of the International Clarinet association and is currently Professor of Music and Coordinator of Winds & Percussion at Virginia Commonwealth University.

---

Friday, October 30, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
The Edgar Allan Poe Project
Christopher Swanson, tenor
Sheng-Yuan Kuan, piano
Damon Ferrante, composer
Daniel Mark Epstein, poet
Just in time for Halloween, this event celebrates the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth with the area debut of a gothic, otherworldly program that features his poems as well as songs, instrumental music, and poetry inspired by them.

---

Friday, November 6, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Thomas Pandolfi, piano
With dazzling virtuosity, Juilliard graduate Thomas Pandolfi performs an all-Gershwin program that includes improvisations on beloved songs such as Our Love is Here to Stay, Embraceable You, and I Got Rhythm; and solo versions of Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue. The Washington Post has described Pandolfi as “an artist who is the master of both the grand gesture and the sensual line.”

---

Friday, November 13, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Music of the Italian Baroque
featuring Mark Janello, harpsichord
and Georgetown University students
This program will feature solo harpsichord compositions of the period, performed by Mark Janello, Peabody Conservatory Faculty member, along with selections from the recently discovered oratorio Trionfo per l’Assunzione della Santissima Vergine, 1705 by Nicola Ceva.
Location:  DAHLGREN CHAPEL

---

Friday, November 20, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Cliff Korman, piano
Brazilian Popular Piano: Lineage and Improvisation
co-presented with the Brazilian Studies Program
Accomplished jazz pianist/composer/educator Cliff Korman has garnered critical acclaim from the New York Times, Jazz Times and Cadence magazine. In this aula show (performance/lecture), he will discuss and demonstrate aspects of Brazilian popular piano repertoire through the works of composers including Ernesto Nazareth, Chiquinha Gonzaga, Radamés Gnatalli, Tom Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal, and Egberto Gismonti. A faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, Korman will consider stylistic and historic components, rhythm groups, and the importance of understanding and maintaining a sense of "groove" and swing.

---

Friday, December 4, 2009 at 1:15 p.m.
Annual Holiday Concert
Join the Georgetown University Department of Performing Arts for its annual program of holiday music, including a sing-along.