National Symphony

The National Symphony Orchestra has canceled its performances at the Kennedy Center this week because its musicians have declined to cross the picket line of the striking Opera House Orchestra.The Opera House musicians struck Sept. 1 over issues of employment and wage guarantees. Previous contracts have ensured the musicians' salaries for specified numbers of weeks even when their services were not needed. The Kennedy Center, which is trying to reduce huge operating deficits, proposed to eliminate such guarantees and the musicians want to keep them.

"It's definitely a milestone for me," said cellist Amit Peled about his debut at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society. "When I saw who else was on the WPAS season brochure, I freaked out. " WPAS President and CEO Neale Perl had no hesitation about adding the tall, long-haired, 37-year-old Peabody Institute faculty member to the organization's starry roster. "He reminds me of [Gregor] Piatigorsky," Perl said. "Amit has the same imposing physical stature and a tremendous stage presence.

Hardly a year goes by that someone doesn't proclaim the death of classical music, but the waves of talented musicians keep on coming, providing fresh life lines. Consider Saturday evening's National Conducting Institute Concert, the culmination of a project by the National Symphony Orchestra and the Kennedy Center. Out of 120 applicants, four aspiring U.S-based conductors were chosen to participate in a three-week immersion program that involved workshops, mentoring from NSO music director Leonard Slatkin, extensive rehearsals, culminating in NSO debuts at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

A recent visit to Christoph Eschenbach's office at the Kennedy Center presented a starkly contrasting image — the conductor all in black, his preferred color on and offstage, sitting on an intensely white leather sofa against white walls. Not a bad visual metaphor for the way Eschenbach is viewed in the music world. Opinions about the new, German-born music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and the first music director of the Kennedy Center (a post created for him)

The National Symphony Orchestra wrapped up its 2006-2007 season with a concert that found both the ensemble and its music director, Leonard Slatkin, at the top of their game. As usual, Slatkin came up with a deft mix of repertoire - symphonies by Haydn (we could never get too much Haydn around here) and Mahler surrounded a premiere by American composer Mark Adamo. The latter's Four Angels, a concerto for harp and orchestra, was commissioned by the NSO for its longtime harpist, Dotian Levalier.

There may be a time when Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" will seem unconnected with reality, a strange reflection on a strange activity. Judging by even a cursory glance at global news today, that time is still ages hence. Although filled with specific imagery from the First World War, the "War Requiem" stands as a lament for - and a rebuke to - all forms of human self-destruction in the name of God or flag, in times past, present and to come. Its provocative power was reaffirmed Saturday night at the Kennedy Center in a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra, two choirs and three eloquent soloists, led by Leonard Slatkin.

The student: Alexis Lanz, 15 School: Oakland Mills High Special achievement: Alexis was chosen to participate in the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship. The program pays for the clarinet player to take weekly lessons from a National Symphony musician and enroll in college-level music theory classes. He also attends NSO rehearsals, where he has the opportunity to talk with and learn from professional musicians. Why he loves the clarinet: "The clarinet is a very versatile instrument," Alexis said.

Alexander Peskanov, an internationally known pianist and founder of the Piano Olympics, will conduct an all-day master class for piano Saturday in Western Maryland College's Levine Recital Hall.The class, open to the public, will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will be limited to the first 80 participants. The cost is $15 for adults and $5 for students. It was originally scheduled for last month, but was postponed due to the blizzard.Mr. Peskanov has performed with orchestras in several U.S. cities and appeared on the PBS special, "Odessa on the Savannah -- The Music of Alexander Peskanov."

The intrigue will continue apace at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts on March 26 and 27 when the Annapolis Symphony reconvenes its search for a conductor to replace Leslie B. Dunner. This time around, the visiting maestro will be Emil de Cou, the associate conductor of Leonard Slatkin's National Symphony Orchestra, who will conduct a varied program of Samuel Barber's Second Essay for Orchestra, Robert Schumann Piano Concerto and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. A Los Angeles native, de Cou began his professional career on the other side of the baton, as principal French horn of Germany's Baden State Theatre and of Austria's Mozart Opera of Salzburg.

Ulysses Kay, 78, a prolific classical composer whose works often focused on fellow blacks, such as Frederick Douglass, and were performed by top orchestras throughout the United States, died Saturday at his Teaneck, N.J., home. He produced more than 135 pieces, including five operas, 20 large orchestral works and more than 30 choral compositions. Among the orchestras that played his music were the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony and the Dallas Symphony.Peter van de Kamp, 93, the Dutch astronomer and Swarthmore College professor who searched for planets in other solar systems, died May 18 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Baltimore-born billionaire and philanthropist David Rubenstein pledged $10 million Wednesday to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with half of those funds earmarked for the National Symphony Orchestra. The five-year gift will include $5 million to the symphony in connection with the arrival of the group's new music director, Christoph Eschenbach; $2.5 million for a major annual cultural program at the institution; and $1.5 million for a program that brings the arts into classrooms around the U.S. The remaining $1 million will be used to support such major events as the center's annual honors gala and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

On a shelf in Leonard Slatkin's office at the Kennedy Center sit three of his half-dozen Grammy Awards, alongside photographs of him receiving honors from the two presidents whose terms coincided with his own as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. That tenure ends this month after 12 eventful seasons. "I think I did a lot," Slatkin says, in between sips of a soda. "Not as much as I would have liked, but a lot." If those accomplishments had to be summed up in a single sentence, it might be: He put the "national" in the National Symphony.

The dreams of inclusiveness and equality envisioned by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will find their ultimate musical fulfillment when works by African-American composers are programmed all season long, and when ensembles of well-diversified personnel regularly perform for well-diversified audiences. Meanwhile, we have to be content with an annual concert commemorating King's legacy. On Tuesday night, Maryland's 22nd such concert, presented by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, offered plenty of talent onstage.

The National Symphony Orchestra wrapped up its 2006-2007 season with a concert that found both the ensemble and its music director, Leonard Slatkin, at the top of their game. As usual, Slatkin came up with a deft mix of repertoire - symphonies by Haydn (we could never get too much Haydn around here) and Mahler surrounded a premiere by American composer Mark Adamo. The latter's Four Angels, a concerto for harp and orchestra, was commissioned by the NSO for its longtime harpist, Dotian Levalier.

If you're up on your Book of Revelations, the number 144,000 will have an immediate significance. If you're up on your musical training, you may be able to hear that number - and other biblical references - translated into sound when the National Symphony Orchestra premieres Beyond Rivers of Vision this week. The composer is James Lee III, who recently joined the faculty at Morgan State University as an assistant professor in composition and theory. And the three-movement composition was his doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor - written less than a year ago. That the score should get its first performance in such a high-profile manner, with NSO music director and American music champion Leonard Slatkin conducting, makes quite a statement.

Video-game music is making the leap from consoles to concert halls with PLAY! a video-game symphony world tour that comes to Wolf Trap tomorrow. With a full orchestra and choir, the concert presents symphonic scores adapted from such blockbuster games as Final Fantasy, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Halo, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kingdom Hearts, World of Warcraft and more. "We're elevating the music of video gaming; it's not just a limited niche," said Jason Michael Paul, producer of PLAY!

In popular memory, the 1940s are associated with a brutal world war and its aftermath. But the decade also saw a remarkable surge of artistic innovation. The works of bebop pioneer Charlie Parker, choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland, director John Huston, to name a few, remain a powerful influence on American culture. In its 2004-2005 season, announced yesterday, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will draw national attention to this transformational time in the nation's life.

"It's definitely a milestone for me," said cellist Amit Peled about his debut at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society. "When I saw who else was on the WPAS season brochure, I freaked out. " WPAS President and CEO Neale Perl had no hesitation about adding the tall, long-haired, 37-year-old Peabody Institute faculty member to the organization's starry roster. "He reminds me of [Gregor] Piatigorsky," Perl said. "Amit has the same imposing physical stature and a tremendous stage presence.

Just as in Baltimore, many music lovers in Washington looked to the visiting Philadelphia Orchestra for their high art fixes during the early decades of the 20th century. They couldn't be counted on to give locally built ensembles much credence. But such snootiness didn't stop the National Symphony Orchestra from being founded in 1931, any more than it kept the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from getting off the ground 15 years before that. There had been previous attempts to establish a homegrown orchestra in D.C., as far back as 1902.

Brass players may not always get the last word, but when there's something monumental to say, they're often the ones chosen to say it. Think of the ebullience with which the baroque trumpets announce the coming of the holy spirit in Bach's "Magnificat." Or the horn, trumpet and trombone fanfares that intone the fateful motif that opens Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. And how about the "Tuba mirum" of Verdi's Requiem, in which blazing trumpets (perhaps antiphonally placed around the concert hall)