COMMUNICATIONS/MEDIA COVERAGE REPORT

NSO BOARD MEETING 3.8.18

NSO events in January and February served as a snapshot of the wide range of
programming that we offer. In those 8 weeks, plus the holiday period since the last
Board meeting, the NSO:

- collaborated with numerous distinguished Gospel artists,

- performed a week of 30+ free In Your Neighborhood concerts,
- celebrated Leonard Bernstein at 100 with the debut of an important
conductor (Yutaka Sado) who studied with Bernstein,
- brought together Ben Folds, Sara Bareilles, and Caroline Shaw for a sold-out
DECLASSIFIED concert,
- saw the return of former music director Christoph Eschenbach in his first
concerts as Conductor Laureate,
- presented 2 sold-out concerts with Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds,
- presented a KC-collaborative West Side Story (also sold out, 3
performances), and
- was seen on PBS nationwide with the broadcast of the 2014 collaboration
with rapper Nas.

All of these activities have helped us meet our communications goals of telling the
stories of our Orchestra’s broad reach, inclusivity, and artistic excellence. A sample of
our media coverage in this period follows.

Broad Reach

1. EuroNews, NSO/Noseda feature on Beethoven’s “Eroica.” Translated into 12

languages and aired in 160+ countries. 12.14.17
2. Kojo Nnamdi Show, WAMU, interview for NSO In Your Neighborhood, 1.4.18
3. Washingtonian, preview of DECLASSIFIED with Ben Folds, Sarah Bareilles,
Caroline Shaw
4. Broadway.com – West Side Story/NSO Pops casting announcement, 12.11.17
5. WTOP- DECLASSIFIED with Ben Folds, Sarah Bareilles, Caroline Shaw
6. MSNBC, Ben Folds, Kasie DC show 1.15.18
7. XXL – preview of NSO/Nas PBS broadcast, 1.14.18
8. Lemon Wire -preview of NSO/Nas PBS broadcast, 1.14.18
9. Rolling Stone, NSO with Derek Smalls, 1.17.18
10. Washington Post – 2018-2019 season announcement
Inclusivity

11. Washington Post Express, interview/feature on Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds

7. XXL – preview of NSO/Nas PBS broadcast, 1.14.18
8. Lemon Wire -preview of NSO/Nas PBS broadcast, 1.14.18

Artistic Excellence

10. Washington Post – 2018-2019 season announcement

12. DC Metro Theater Arts, review of DECLASSIFIED with Ben Folds, Sarah
Bareilles, Caroline Shaw. 1.14.18

13. Washington Post-review of NSO/Sado, Bernstein program

14. Washington Post – preview//feature on Leila Josefowicz, 1.18.18
15. Washington Post – review of Janowski/Jackiw 2.22.18
1

December 12, 2017

Maestro Noseda conquers Washington with the Eroica

By Euronews

National Symphonic Orchestra’s new musical director gets standing ovation on first night.
He is one of the greatest conductors of his generation. Gianandrea Noseda is the new Music
Director of the the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington.

The Italian maestro’s name is the latest on a prestigious list. Since its foundation in 1931,
directors have included Hans Kindler, Howard Mitchell, Antal Dorati, Mstislav Rostropovitch
and Christoph Eschenbach.

Eroica: a symbolic choice

For his very first concert in his new role at the Kennedy Center, the Italian maestro
chose Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony – better known as the Eroica. A symbolic choice.
“Eroica is a turning point. Until that time, the longest symphony lasted 31-32 minutes.
Beethoven expanded the length of the symphony over 50 minutes. And until that time, the
structure of the symphony was much simpler. I don’t want to break down with the
tradition of this orchestra, but Eroica is a sort of column, it just stands for itself.”
- Gianandrea Noseda, NSO Music Director

As concertmaster, Nurit Bar-Josef is Gianandrea Noseda’s right-hand. In a profession

overwhelmingly dominated by older men, Bar-Josef was the youngest concertmaster ever
appointed to a major symphony orchestra at the age of 26. Sixteen years later, she still sees her
job as incredibly rewarding, and says meticulous preparation is key.
“Technically, and that’s the beauty about Beethoven, everything he wrote just sits so well
on the instrument and always feels good to play and the struggle is more in the bow
control, you know, creating the different sounds and dynamics that he wanted.”
- Nurit Bar-Josef, Concertmaster

Homage to Napoleon
Composed in 1803, Eroica paid homage to the ideals of the French Revolution.
“He wanted to dedicate this symphony – at the beginning he did – to Napoleon
Bonaparte, but when he was reached by the news he proclaimed himself emperor, he just
scratched the name Napoleon. There is a hole in the paper, in the manuscript. So also the
marche funèbre in the second movement, is a marche funèbre considering all the big
visions, the ideals he expected Napoleon to fulfill.”
- Gianandrea Noseda, NSO Music Director

Noseda: a contagious energy

“It’s mostly refreshing to have a new music director and just sort of a new way of looking at
things. The beauty of Maestro Noseda is when he steps on the podium he has this sound that he
brings with him and so I feel that the sound of the orchestra is really… it’s just like bigger than
life!” - Nurit Bar-Josef, Concertmaster

“My ambitions about NSO are very simple: just to be consistent in delivering the highest
possible quality. The competition, worldwide, is very tough. It’s not enough to be ‘bravi’,
you have to be exceptionally ‘bravo’.” - Gianandrea Noseda, NSO Music Director

Communication is key to drawing a large audience. An audience to whom Noseda directly

introduced himself ahead of the concert, which earned him a standing ovation. A promising
debut.
2

January 4, 2018

From Symphony Hall to the Church Hall, NSO Brings

Live Music To Local Washington
Classical music has a reputation for being inaccessible to many listeners, but the National
Symphony Orchestra is trying to combat that. Can a week-long program break down some of the
barriers keeping people from hearing and appreciating classical music?

Listen at: https://thekojonnamdishow.org/audio/#/shows/2018-01-04/nso/111024/@00:00

3

January 12, 2018

Declassified: Ben Folds Presents

January 12 at 9:00 pm - 11:30 pm
$25 to $75

Launched in 2015, the NSO’s

Declassified series offers concerts that
blend pop and classical material, with
the goal of reaching a wider—and
younger—audience. Does piano-
pounding singer/songwriter Ben Folds
have the right vision for the gig?
Judge for yourself at his latest
installment, which includes Pulitzer
Prize–winning composer (and Kanye
West collaborator) Caroline Shaw as
well as pop singer Sara Bareilles.

Photo courtesy of Washingtonian

4

December 11, 2017

Corey Cott, Solea Pfeiffer and More to Join National
Symphony Orchestrpa for WEST SIDE STORY in
Concert
By BWW News Desk
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) Pops continues the international celebration
of Leonard Bernstein at 100 with West Side Story in Concert, led by Steven Reineke.
Featured soloists for this timeless tale of forbidden love and fierce family loyalties
include: Corey Cott as Tony (Broadway's Newsies and Bandstand), Solea Pfeiffer as Maria
(Eliza in Hamilton tour), Ana Villafañe as Anita (Gloria Estefan in Broadway's On Your
Feet!), Ephraim Sykes as Riff (Seaweed in NBC's 2016 live production of Hairspray Live!),
and Joel Perez as Bernardo (Broadway's Fun Home).
Bernstein's legendary musical interpretation of Romeo & Juliet features lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim. This NSO presentation will be lightly staged, with theatrical lighting, and costumes,
and is directed by Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and
assistant director Eric Sean Fogel. S. Katy Tucker and Mark McCullough are the visual
designers; Lynly Saunders designed the costumes.
"What was a originally a period piece about New York gangs in the 1950s has become one of the
most relevant and provocative pieces of music theater ever as it continues to resonate about life
in contemporary society," said director Francesca Zambello. "Revisiting West Side Story today
with the NSO gives performers and audiences alike a chance to not only explore a work
quintessential to American music theater history, but to see its many layers make a profound
statement about America."
"Leonard Bernstein has long been one of my personal idols as a conductor, composer, musician,
and educator," said Steven Reineke. "I'm thrilled to be celebrating his centennial with our NSO
performances of one of the most classic and archetypal pieces of American Musical Theater ever
written. With its powerful and iconic score, this story continues to resonate with audiences of all
ages as it tells its timeless tale of forbidden love and social prejudice."
Three performances of West Side Story in Concert take place in the Concert Hall at the Kennedy
Center on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, February 14, 16, and 17, at 8 p.m.
Born on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Leonard Bernstein became a towering
figure of 20th-century music and culture. Bernstein was world-renowned as the composer of
West Side Story, Candide, and On the Town, among numerous stage and orchestral works; as the
celebrated music director of the New York Philharmonic and other leading orchestras, with
whom he created a trove of acclaimed recordings; as an educator whose televised Young
People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic created more than one generation of music
lovers; and as a lifelong humanitarian who spoke out whenever he witnessed injustice.
"Leonard Bernstein at 100" is a year of local, national, and worldwide events that pay tribute to
this iconic artist whose influence and impact on arts and culture in the U.S. and around the world
have transcended both genres and generations. Throughout the centennial celebration, which
begins at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.,
performances of theater, classical, jazz, choral works, dance, and education events will explore
and celebrate the many facets of Leonard Bernstein as musician, composer, educator, and
humanitarian.
While truly a citizen artist to the world, Washington, D.C. was one of Leonard Bernstein's
creative homes. Bernstein frequented the Kennedy White House, regularly composed for and
conducted Washington ensembles and at area venues, served as emcee for the fundraiser for the
National Performing Arts Center (later named the Kennedy Center) and premiered lasting and
notable works such as MASS-at the opening of the Center-and West Side Story here in the
nation's capital.
Show-stopping pops concerts have been a staple of the National Symphony Orchestra's more
than 80 years of performances. These concerts have ranged from performances on a barge on the
Potomac River, to concerts on the Ellipse, and in National Parks around the greater Washington
area. The 2000-2001 season saw the creation of the post of Principal Pops Conductor specifically
for Broadway great Marvin Hamlisch, who held the position until the 2010-2011 season. The
2011-2012 season was the first with Steven Reineke as Principal Pops Conductor. NSO Pops
performances take place at all the NSO's principal performance venues: Wolf Trap, the West
Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, and in the NSO's primary home, The John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, with a subscription season featuring the Orchestra with guest artists from a
variety of musical genres.
5

January 16, 2018

Ben Folds’ ‘declassifies’ the Kennedy Center with

Sara Bareilles, Jon Batiste
By Jason Fraley

WASHINGTON — Imagine your

favorite musicians backed by a live
symphony orchestra.

That’s the idea behind the Kennedy

Center series “Declassified: Ben Folds
Presents,” where the former Ben Folds
Five frontman — and new NSO
artistic adviser — curates and hosts
live crossover concerts between chart-
topping stars and the National
Symphony Orchestra.

“It’s the Ben Folds 85,” Folds joked.

Musician Ben Folds attends the Generation Next Plenary Keynote
during the 2014 NAMM show on Thursday, January 23, 2014 in “You always want to bring new
Anaheim, Calif. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP)
audiences to the incredible institution
of the symphony orchestra. …
Gershwin was doing that in his time. … Music to me has always been about context. If you hear
a song and it’s in the context of your life and you can relate to it, it doesn’t matter what the style
is or where it’s coming from. What we’ve been able to do in this series is contextualize
orchestral music and re-contextualize modern artists.”

This summer, Folds will welcome Jon Batiste from “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“Jon and I have been talking about this for almost a year,” Folds said. “He may win for being the
most enthusiastic in his ideas. He’s got like 20 more ideas that we can possibly accomplish! I
really like that about him. He’s a consummate musician. … He’s an utterly incredible piano
player. He’s funny and engaged. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve met. This gives him a
chance to be more serious about his musicianship. It’s a different niche.”

Last weekend, Folds brought Grammy- and Tony-nominated singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles.

“Sara Bareilles is one of the best musicians I’ve ever played with,” Folds said. “She’s also a
composer in her own right — a pop composer, but a composer — so we gave her audience the
honor of being treated as such. At the same time, the audience is brought into music they might
not have otherwise heard, which I find is becoming the soundtracks to people’s lives.”

On Friday night, Bareilles performed a range of pop hits (“Love Song”) and show tunes (“She
Used to Be Mine”) from Broadway’s “Waitress,” which she returns to star in on Tuesday.

“We made sure that we went with two anthems, ‘Love Song’ and ‘Brave,'” Folds said. “‘Love
Song’ was re-imagined by Caroline Shaw, [who] turned that one upside down. It was very
different from what you’d be used to. … Then, ‘Brave’ as the encore; we gave them what they
expected. … Then, we made sure we did one that no one’s heard before; [then], ‘She Used to Be
Mine.’ It’s a beautiful song. That one irked me because I wanted to have written it.”

While Bareilles is more well-known, audiences were just as lucky to see Shaw, who, at age [30],
won the Pulitzer Prize for Music with her a cappella composition for Roomful of Teeth.

“She may be my favorite modern composer; I just love what she does,” Folds said. “So I’ll bring
in my [famous] friends like Sara … but I also want to learn some new artists myself, so I’m
listening to new stuff. It doesn’t matter if it sells or not. I don’t care. For the second part of the
billing, [most recently] Caroline Shaw, I just want to be introduced to — and introduce my
audience to — something that we haven’t heard before. People flip when they see Caroline!”

Danay Suarez earned a similar reaction during the first “Declassified: Ben Folds Presents.”

“She’s a Cuban artist somewhere between hip-hop and straight-up singing,” Folds said. “She has
a discernible Cuban tilt to her music, but it’s very unique. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a star-
is-born moment. That was so exciting for me. When we started her first tune with the NSO, the
room was one way. When we finished, it was a new room. People were blown away. Then she
walked right from there to the Latin Grammys, where she had four nominations.”

While he mostly serves as the show’s host, Folds will occasionally perform himself.

“I’m more of an emcee, but I insert myself where we need an extra person,” Folds said. “For
Sara, I played percussion and toyed around with some piano. A couple of times I’ve fired myself,
like I’ll sit in and play piano, then realize the house piano player can read better than me. … To
be honest, I’m just selfish and I want to be involved with my favorite artists.”

Of all of his career work, Folds says the Kennedy Center series has a special place in his heart.

“I have hundreds of gigs a year that I play on, but probably 80 percent of my time is spent on the
two or three ‘Declassified’ shows I do,” Folds said. “It’s what means the most to me.”

In addition to the headliners, you’ll also get to see the talented musicians of the NSO.

“It’s not like we’re giving you the ‘dummies’ version of the symphony orchestra; we’re pushing
the orchestra to where they are sweating bullets before the performance,” Folds said. “They’re
actually being challenged. … You’re turning the orchestra into what it is: 80 individuals who live
in the same time period we do, who happen to be exceptional at making music together.”

How long might this unique series continue at the Kennedy Center?

“What is amazing is that we now have artists coming to us to do this,” Folds said. “So I think as
we continue to sell them out and artists want to do them, we’ll plan more. I was going to give it
three [shows] and see where we were. So far, we’re killing it, so I think we’ll continue. I would
say maybe two or three [concerts] a year as long as I’m doing this gig.”

Listen to the full chat with Ben Folds online.

6

January 14, 2018

Ben Folds on music and politics

With Kasie DC

Watch full video here: https://www.msnbc.com/kasie-dc/watch/ben-folds-on-music-and-politics-1137098307815

Singer-songwriter Ben Folds, the first artistic adviser for the National Symphony Orchestra, sits
down with Kasie Hunt on Kasie DC to talk about music education, his support for Sen. Bernie
Sanders, his relationship with Former Governor Mike Huckabee, and music in the time of
protest.
 7

January 14, 2018

Watch a Preview of ‘Nas: Live From the Kennedy

Center’ With the National Symphony Orchestra
By C. Vernon Coleman II

Nas is one of hip-hop's greatest griots,

and has been for over 20 years, and his
debut album, Illmatic is a national
treasure. The illustrious Esco has
brought his magnum opus to the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts in Washington D.C., with a live
performance of the LP backed by the
National Symphony Orchestra.

The Queens rapper recently dropped a

promo for the epic set. "You can say I
Watch video here: http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2018/01/preview-nas-
live-kennedy-center-national-symphony-orchestra/ had a foresight about where I would
be, where I should be, where I had to
be," Esco says in a voice over, while clips of Queensbridge and footage from his rehearsal at the
Kennedy Center flash across the screen. "Before there was a fan base or a crowd or a audience, I
was the fan base. The mirror was my audience. Myself in a room by myself was all I needed."

Nas offers classical takes on rap classics like “N.Y. State of Mind,” “The World Is Yours,”
“Memory Lane (Sittin’ in Da Park)” and “It Ain’t Hard to Tell.”

"I worked on my thing. I worked on my craft and I stuck to it," he says on the preview. "I hope
that you can look through the dream with me and see the journey I took to be on this stage with
an orchestra."

The production was be put on by Mass Appeal, and directed by Jason Goldwatch and executive
produced by Nas, Anthony Saleh and Peter Bittenbender. The performance premieres nationwide
Feb. 2 at 9 p.m. EST on PBS.

Watch a preview of Nas' upcoming live performance from the Kennedy Center below.
8

January 16, 2018

Nas performs “Illmatic” Live from the Kennedy

Center
By Bobby Wilson
As you can see in the trailer for the movie, Nas is amazed by his own success. It’s been decades
since he broke through, riding the popularity of his guest appearance on “Live at the BBQ” to a
record deal and several acclaimed albums. Even after all of that, however, Nas is still in awe of
the journey he made from Queensbridge to the Kennedy Center.

Thankfully we get to share in Nas’s journey. The film mixes footage of early Nas, his
neighborhood, the concert and interviews conducted then and now. The concert film premieres
on PBS on February 2nd at 9 p.m. The film will be available to stream the next day here.

Not that long ago someone asked me what hip-hop albums should they listen to all the way
through. I sort of dodged the question and gave them five albums I liked from 2017 instead. If I
had a chance to redo the question I would put Nas’s “Illmatic” at the top of the list.

You have to remember that “Illmatic was a debut and that Nas was 19. Actually scratch that; no
matter his age or where he was in his career “Illmatic” would be absolutely essential. It only adds
to the lore that he happened to be young and just starting his career.

Many hip-hop albums, especially mainstream hip-hop albums, are good for two or three bangers,
a love song and a few other decent tunes. “Illmatic” is that pure. It’s nine great songs, no skits
and no frills. Perhaps no opening track in the history of hip-hop has better set the tone for an
album. “NY State of Mind” was Nas’s updated version of “The Message” with a sparser beat and
more vivid poetry. Nas deftly recreated the Queensbridge Housing Projects over the course of
the album while reinventing the way people did hip-hop.

It was a helluva debut.

So if you haven’t listened to “Illmatic” go do that now. And don’t miss the concert film of Nas’s
performance next month.
9

January 17, 2018

Spinal Tap Bassist Returns With David Crosby, Peter

Frampton on Solo LP
By Ryan Reed

Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) from Spinal Tap performing during the 2009 Glastonbury Festival
at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset. Anthony Devlin/Getty Images

Harry Shearer, who portrayed bassist Derek Smalls in the 1984 parody-rockumentary This Is
Spinal Tap, is releasing his debut solo LP in character. Smalls Change (Meditations Upon
Ageing) arrives on April 13th via Twanky Records/BMG.

This list goes to 11 — counting down the screen's best fictional rappers, rockers and R&B
superstars

David Crosby, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, Peter Frampton, Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins, Red
Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith, former Yes member Rick Wakeman, Dweezil Zappa, Joe
Satriana and Steve Vai will appear on the record with many others.

Smalls described the project as "halfway between 'rage against the dying light' and trying to find
the light." Detailing how he roped in so many high-profile guest artists, the bassist said simply:
"Pity fuck."
Smalls will launch a United States tour, "Lukewarm Water Live: An Adventure in Loud Music,"
on April 14th at New Orleans' Saenger Theater (in collaboration with the Louisiana
Philharmonic Orchestra). Full details of the tour have yet to be announced, but the trek will also
include dates at Atlanta's Symphony Hall (with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) and a special
appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center.

Smalls, singer-guitarist David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel
(Christopher Guest) have issued three Spinal Tap LPs: 1984's This Is Spinal Tap, 1992's Break
Like the Wind and 2009's Back From the Dead.

Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing) Track List (With Descriptions)

1. "Openture" (featuring the Hungarian Studio Orchestra)

"The philosophy of this record, expressed in fewer words than I've taken to almost describe it."

2. "Rock 'n' Roll Transplant" (featuring Steve Lukather, Jim Keltner and Chad Smith)
"Whatever might be ailing you, rock 'n' roll is the cure. Ask Dr. Derek!"

3. "Butt Call" (featuring Phil X, Taylor Hawkins)

"In one lifetime, the telephone has gone from a miracle to a pain in the arse."

4. "Smalls Change" (featuring the Hungarian Studio Orchestra, Judith Owen, Danny Kortchmar
and Russ Kunkel)
"Why Lukewarm Water is no longer bracketed by Fire and Ice. A nod to what's past, and a wink
to what's next."

5. "Memo To Willie" (featuring Donald Fagen, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Larry Carlton and the
Snarky Puppy Horns)
"An urgent missive to the Honorable Member: continued tumescence, if you please."

6. "It Don't Get Old" (featuring Peter Frampton and Waddy Wachtel)
"Life on the road, an endless series of pointless encounters. What could be better?"

7. "Complete Faith" (featuring the Hungarian Studio Orchestra)

"A musical interruption."

8. "Faith No More" (featuring the Hungarian Studio Orchestra and Todd Sucherman)
"As I get older, I look back more fondly on all the people I’ve known. Except for Ian."

9. "Gimme Some (More) Money" (featuring Paul Shaffer, Waddy Wachtel and David Crosby)
"Time and technology change everything, except the need for change."

10. "MRI" (featuring Derek with Dweezil Zappa)

"Everybody’s going to have one, eventually. It’s just another ride. To hell, but still…"

11. "Hell Toupee" (featuring the Hungarian Studio Orchestra

"Think Satan doesn't have dark thoughts about his appearance as he ages? Think again."
12. "Gummin the Gash" (featuring Steve Vai, Gregg Bisonnette and Jane Lynch)
"Losing your teeth closes one door, and opens another. A celebration of the meeting of two
toothless cavities."

13. "She Puts the Bitch in Obituary" (featuring Richard Thompson and Jane Lynch)
"A hymn to womanhood in all her splendor."

14. "When Men Did Rock" (featuring Michael League, Joe Satriani, Rick Wakeman and the
Hungarian Studio Orchestra
10

January 30, 2018

Kennedy Center’s classical season offers focus on Italy,

Noseda
By Anne Midgette

“Among the best young quartets today:” The Dover Quartet will come to the Kennedy Center for a three-year
residency starting in the 2018-2019 season. (Carlin Ma )

On Tuesday, the Kennedy Center, which has been experimenting with the rollout of its season
announcements for the past couple of years, announced, without a news conference or fanfare,
the 2018-2019 seasons of its classical music constituents: the National Symphony Orchestra, the
Washington National Opera and the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts.

The NSO continues to feel what one might term the Gianandrea Noseda effect, with a new level
of offerings and programming in the second season of its new music director. Britten’s War
Requiem with Karina Flores, Ian Bostridge and Matthias Goerne. A program of Vivaldi,
Gesualdo, Dallapiccola and Rossini’s “Stabat Mater.” And, a guest performance, Verdi’s “I
Vespri Siciliani,” with the forces of Noseda’s longtime musical home Teatro Regio Torino —
just announced as one of the highlights of the Carnegie Hall season — is coming to Washington
as well. It feels like moving into a new gear.
Noseda will conduct for 12 weeks in Washington next season. The schedule has him pairing a
new orchestral work by Mason Bates with Mahler’s first symphony, and Luciano Berio’s folk
song arrangements, sung by the mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili, with Dvorak’s “New World.” He
will also lead the second symphony of Alfredo Casella, whose work he has long been
championing; and a Schubert program featuring Renée Fleming singing orchestral arrangements
of lieder.

“I don’t want to be seen as a sort of eclectic conductor,” said Noseda on Monday, speaking by
phone from Paris, where he is rehearsing the Orchestre de Paris. “I try to encourage the curiosity
of the audience, but sometimes also to play what they expect an orchestra to play.”

“We want everyone to feel welcome here,” he said in a press statement, “whether it’s a listener’s
first or fiftieth concert.”

There’s quite a bit for both sides in the 2018-2019 season.

The NSO will see its debut of Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, the
Lithuanian shooting star who is now music director of the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, in a French
program; and a world premiere by Lera Auerbach,
“Arctica,” co-commissioned by the National Geographic
Society, on a program of recent music conducted by Teddy
Abrams as part of the Direct Current festival.

The hottest new conductor on the

international scene, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla,
It will also host two mini-festivals that the orchestra’s
music director of the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra, will make her NSO
executive director, Gary Ginstling, describes as “two
debut. (Courtesy of the Artist ) programming initiatives that share the same goals”: live
performances of the John Williams scores to Episodes 4, 5,
6 and 7 of the Star Wars franchise on the one hand, and, on the other, a mini-festival called
Mozart Forever, with three all-Mozart programs conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann and featuring
principal players from the orchestra.

The problem with staggering the season

announcements is that without knowing the full scope
of some of the more adventurous programming — the
Direct Current festival, or Bates’s KC Jukebox series
— the classical offerings, overall, seem a little tame. A
major focus of 2018-2019 will be a Celebration of
Italian Culture, an evident throwback to the annual
national festivals that have long been a hallmark of the
center — but it’s not clear yet exactly what that
festival will consist of, beyond two Italian programs
from the NSO, the visit from the Torino troops, and, An operatic retelling of the story of the Christmas
the Washington National Opera’s contribution, truce that briefly united warring troops during
World War I, Kevin Puts’s 2011 opera won the
“Tosca.” Pulitzer Prize and will come to Washington
National Opera, the Kennedy Center announced
today, in the 2018-2019 season. (Jeff Roffman for
The Atlanta Opera )
WNO is holding to what seems to be its established pattern of big war horses with one American
work — Kevin Puts’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Silent Night” — and the American Opera
Initiative to carry the new (this year’s one-hour work, “Taking Up Serpents,” is by the interesting
composer Kamala Sankaram, whose “Thumbprint,” produced by Beth Morrison, was performed
in several places around the country). The season opens with a new “Traviata,” directed by
WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, and continues with “Eugene Onegin” (in the
beautiful Robert Carsen production originally seen at the Met, and with a predominantly Russian
cast) and “Faust,” the first time either of those works has been done in Washington in some
decades. Erin Wall stars in “Faust,” conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, in a production from the
Houston Grand Opera, while Keri Alkema and Latonia Moore alternate as Tosca under Ethan
McSweeny’s direction in a Seattle Opera production, which Speranza Scappucci will conduct.

The big news from the Fortas Chamber Concerts is that the Kennedy Center has snared the
brilliant Dover Quartet for a three-year residency that will include performances on the KC
Jukebox series and educational components. The focus of the season is heavy on quartets,
including the Juilliard Quartet, the Takacs Quartet, and the Escher Quartet, along with the Tallis
Scholars, Imani Winds, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and a four-handed concert by
pianists Shai Wosner and Orion Weiss.

But the main thrust of the classical announcement, perhaps inevitably, is the potential of the
Noseda tenure at an orchestra that hasn’t really had this kind of fizz in its previous history. The
season’s primary goal, Ginstling says, “is to allow Gianandrea’s musical personality to emerge.”
As for the rest of the center: Stay tuned for more season announcements in the months ahead.
11
12

January 14, 2018

In the Moment: Report on ‘Declassified’ with Ben Folds

and Sara Bareilles at The Kennedy Center
By David Siegel

Under the masterful, musical code-switching

curation of National Symphony Orchestra
(NSO) Artistic Advisor Ben Folds, the future
for new audiences finding their way to the
usually buttoned-up, High Arts atmosphere of a
classical music venue was very clear at the most
recent NSO Declassified concert.

Ben Folds. Photo courtesy of the Kennedy Center.

The one performance-only Declassified on

Friday evening, January 12th, was a seamlessly unfolding musical evening of adventure. It
spotlighted the fluently, musically multi-lingual talents of Folds. With his ten musical selection,
the imaginative in-the-moment performances of special guests, pop vocalist and composer Sara
Bareilles and composer, violinist, and vocalist Caroline Shaw along with the NSO conducted
by Edwin Outwater the evening was a knock-out that subversively meshed the pop with the
classical. (OK, I learned to appreciate the classics from watching cartoon shorts and long-form
animated features at my small town movie house when I was growing up. And listened to Sgt.
Pepper’s use of a major symphony orchestra through my own haze)
Folds opened the evening as master-of-ceremony, with comments that quickly brought the
audience to knowing attention, then applause and potent cheers. He spoke of how the beauty of
music can be a way to protest and speak out against the oppressive and oppressor, that music and
the human voice can speak out against injustice in their own dissident ways (my paraphrasing).
The NSO immediately began to convey such sentiments with the almost mournful, string-
dominated “Cantabile for Strings” by Peteris Vasks. The piece had almost impossible to explain,
emotionally riveting long-held string notes that conductor Outwater expressively conveyed with
his finger gestures.

Next up were three modern compositions

performed by Caroline Shaw, including: “Red,
Red Rose” by Robert Burns/Caroline Shaw,
“Entr’acte” composed and arranged by Shaw,
and “Other Song” composed by Shaw with
arrangements by Shaw and Dominic Mekky.
Shaw’s composition and her singing were not
merely polished, but otherworldly in their
presentations of humanity. Her voice and that
of an 8 member chorus (Kerry Marsh Singers)
were uniquely spiritually rich presentations, as
if in a timeless cathedral. There was such an
ease in her manner, such comfort even with
difficult vocal passages. Is it any wonder Shaw
won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music (at age
29 – the youngest ever as Folds told the
audience) for her composition “Partita for 8
Voices,” an a capella work for the vocal
ensemble Roomful Of Teeth and has worked

Composer Caroline Shaw. Photo by Kait Moreno. with the likes of Kanye West.
After Shaw’s three compositions, conductor
Outwater introduced Shostakovich’s “Allegro from Symphony No.10 in E minor.” The piece,
written during the height of Stalin’s power in the late 1930’s Soviet Union, was one of
tremendous emotion and percussion, like a blow against tyranny (or as I came to recall driving
home, with the visual power of the famous 1984 ad for Apple in its metaphoric strike against
IBM).

The evening then pivoted to Sara Bareilles. If you don’t know Bareilles, she is a multiple
Grammy and Tony-nominated pop vocalist and composer. Her Tony nomination was for Best
Original Score for her Broadway musical Waitress. Her book Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far)
In Song, was a New York Times bestseller. Bareilles was recently announced to play Mary
Magdelene in the April 2018 NBC Live production of Jesus Christ Superstar with Alice Cooper
and John Legend.
Bareilles performed her pop hits and two songs from her musical Waitress, often accompanied
by piano or a small band, but this time with new orchestration and arrangements and performed
with the bigger sound accompaniment of the NSO. The numbers were “Used to Be Mine,” If I
Dare,” “Love Song,” “Brave,” and “Once Upon Another Time.” I was willingly drowned in the
sounds of Bareilles’ voice, the vulnerable emotions she expressed in her lyrics and the
underlying NSO strings. The compositions were oh so smooth. The very knowing Concert Hall
audience gave each Bareilles number a rousing reception including hoots and whoops.

Then came the final

number of the evening.
It was the Bareilles
anthem “Brave.” It
began with a hush, then
Bareilles stood and
sang as if in church,
with Shaw and Folds
surrounding her with
heads bowed. Then
Shaw, Folds and
Sara Bareilles as seen in the musical Waitress. Photo by Josh Lehrer. Bareilles became a
beautiful trio of
harmony. There were moments of a kind of stillness of voice and musical instruments as if the
three, joined by The Kerry Marsh Singers and the NSO were reaching up to God through song
about not letting an enemy stare you down.

Finally, let me add that the Declassified evening’s casual atmosphere was enriched with pre and
post-concert features. There was some free beer tasting from Alexandria’s Port City Brewery
before the show a well as entertainment by the Faux Paz, a University of Maryland a Cappella
group and Wes Swing, a singer and multi-instrumentalist. After Declassified concluded, on the
Millennium stage was live band karaoke by Hari-Karaoke pumping out tunes with the audience
totally energized and involved.
Folds accomplished what he had set out to do for concert-goers and music-lovers of any age and
taste at the Declassified concert. It was an event where all that was needed to experience and
appreciate the music, was only “a pair of ears and a heart.” And folks, do stay tuned,
additional Declassified performances are in the works for 2018.
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

National Symphony Orchestra’s Declassified was performed on January 12, 2018, at 9 p.m. in
the Concert Hall at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts – 2700 F Street, NW, in
Washington, DC. For future NSO events go online.
13

January 11, 2018

A Bernstein protégé stirs up the NSO
By Anne Midgette

Yutaka Sado, a student of Leonard Bernstein, showed an economy of gesture at times during his overdue American
debut with the NSO on Thursday night. (Stephen Elliot)

Leonard Bernstein had a number of students, but in this year of his centenary, there may not be
many of them left unknown. However, Yutaka Sado is evidently one of them, at least in this
country. His performance with the NSO on Thursday night at the Kennedy Center was his debut
not only with the orchestra — even though he was an assistant to Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, and
has a thriving career in Europe and Asia — but in the United States.

This is all the more striking since the performance revealed him to be a conductor of great
assurance and showmanship — certainly as good or better than many others with higher profiles.

It’s normal in such situations to open with a shot across the bow, though on paper the overture to
Rossini’s “The Thieving Magpie” looked more like froth than the tightrope act it was to become.
Sado kept his gestures so minimal in places that it was hard to imagine how the orchestra could
detect a beat at all, but the result was a kind of hyperfixation on him and a taut alertness from the
players that escalated into high-voltage electricity when he actually did begin to gesture. The
result was a roller-coaster ride: thrilling, and a little exhausting.

For the rest of the evening, though, Sado’s gestures were big and generous, building several
times into the kind of intense freneticism that’s more associated than restraint with his late
mentor. The centerpiece of the evening was Bernstein’s own second symphony, “The Age of
Anxiety,” offered as part of the ongoing Bernstein centennial, with an expansive clarity borne
out by the soloist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet (who played the same piece here with Gustavo Dudamel
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2010). This piece, written in 1949 (before “West Side
Story” and “Candide” impressed us with “signature” Bernstein), is a tortured autobiography
showing a young man striving for greatness and inclusion — laying out, in short, Bernstein’s
lifelong themes, and Thibaudet can sink his teeth into its effusive blend of the virtuosic and the
maudlin.

Sado was a clear collaborator, and one eager to showcase the orchestra soloists before taking his
own bow; but the orchestra sounded a little less taut than it had in the Rossini and continued to
fray a bit on the second half of the program.

The conductor’s main weakness is one he shares with Christoph Eschenbach in this hall: Even
more than Eschenbach, he tended to swamp the strings with the brass, bringing out inner voices
and percussion accents so strongly that the main string melodies sometimes vanished beneath the
wave-crashes of cymbals. Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini” became a violent seascape
under a sky of metal. Not that he relinquished control. He gave lots of air and space to the music
so that in, for instance, the clarinet solo in “Francesca,” time seemed to stop around the
instrument’s suspended voice.

But the orchestra lacked the hairpin precision to do full justice to his concept, so that at moments
toward the end, the Tchaikovsky seemed to flag. The same could be said, at moments, of the
varied and imposing reading of Ravel’s “Bolero,” which grew as steadily and organically as one
could wish, and which allowed the solo instruments — the saxophone, the trombone — the space
and freedom to put their own inflections on the theme, but which toward its climax started to get
a tiny bit heavy-handed as the orchestra carried out its drumming march with slightly flat feet.
And then suddenly Sado swept in, brilliantly, with a woozy ending that made it sound as if the
whole carefully constructed edifice was about to collapse in on itself, restoring a sense of shock
and wonder at the finish.

In short, it was an exhilarating performance, if not a perfect one, from a conductor who comes
endorsed by the NSO’s music director, Gianandrea Noseda (he is principal guest conductor of
the Teatro Regio, Noseda’s home theater), and should certainly be doing more in this country.
Among his listeners was a baby mouse, who diverted some of the audience by making his way
laboriously up and down the aisle, as if seeking to escape the waves of sound washing all around
him.
14

January 18, 2018

Musical genius: How a violinist cuts up the career

template
By Anne Midgette

Violinist Leila Josefowicz walks an interesting line between unconventionality and orthodoxy. (Chris Lee)

When the violinist Leila Josefowicz walks on stage, you know she’s a different kind of
performer just by looking at her. Her concert attire is angular, sculptural, distinctive. It’s created
for her by the designer Jenny Lai, who specializes in inventive approaches to performance attire,
and it meets her specifications — not least in that it’s supremely comfortable. “First and
foremost,” the violinist says, “I actually want to forget what I’m wearing on stage.”

Josefowicz, 40, is a former child prodigy. After years of wearing “white lacy dresses with bows
in my hair,” she says, and abiding by dictates about what she could and couldn’t wear on stage,
“I have an absolutely allergic reaction to all of these things.” After trying on one of Lai’s
prototype blouses, Josefowicz says, she “gave her all these gowns I had in my closet, and she cut
them up and made them into shirts.”

“I’m sure some very conservative people look at me and think I’m off my rocker,” she says, “but
that’s fine. I’m proud of myself.”
Josefowicz’s stage appearance matches what she’s done with her career. A big-name soloist, she
plays almost exclusively new music — such as the violin concerto by the 65-year-old Scottish-
born Oliver Knussen, which she is playing this week with the National Symphony Orchestra as
the second installment of a three-part Kennedy Center residency. “It’s more rare for me to play a
nonliving composer than a living composer,” she says. When she does play a piece by a dead
white male, it’s generally a 20th-century master such as Stravinsky (whose violin concerto she’ll
play with the NSO in April) or the German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann — “To me, he’s
one of the greats,” she says — whose concerto she will record in May. To many audiences, even
Stravinsky still seems newfangled. To Josefowicz, he’s an anchor of convention in an expanding
personal canon.

“When you have so much distance from the original source, it puts everything into a museum,”
she says, of the standard classical repertory. “I prefer a living museum.”

And that’s exactly how she presents the work.

“This is something that hasn’t happened often in my life,” said the composer-conductor Esa-
Pekka Salonen of the first time he worked with Josefowicz, in Knussen’s concerto. “It’s a very
good piece, of course, but she played it with the same kind of commitment and panache as if she
were playing Brahms or Sibelius. She approached it like a masterpiece. And then it comes across
as a masterpiece. It’s contagious, and that sort of approach transmits energy to the audience.”

Salonen promptly asked her whether he could write a violin concerto of his own for her — and
was impressed anew by her authority.

“When we started this process, she said, ‘Remember not to put too much s--- in it,’ ” he said. He
asked her to clarify. “She said, ‘I can do a very expressive thing on one note if you let me,’ ” he
explains. “She was referring to a sort of over-busy-ness, an over-manipulation in contemporary
music, which often happens. . . . Music happens often with less notes, less events per second.”

And then, when he was finishing the work, the violinist, who can rise to any technical challenge,
pointed to one passage at the end of the third movement and said, “I’m not going to play that;
I’m not going to go anywhere near this; rewrite it,” he says. “I was taken aback, of course, but
she said it with such firmness and confidence that I thought, ‘Okay, yeah, listen to this person.’
And I did rewrite the last two minutes of the movement, and it came off better.”

A number of classical soloists are creating maverick careers within the standard concert
establishment. The pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Jeremy Denk, the violinist Jennifer Koh; and
the soprano Barbara Hannigan are just a few of the artists known for exploring less-trodden
pathways while remaining largely within the framework of a conventional classical concert
career, seeking out a creativity that an exclusive diet of the standard repertoire of masterworks,
great though it is, doesn’t necessarily provide.

Josefowicz’s particular terrain is new music by blue-chip composers, a particular slice of

contemporary classical orthodoxy. She has given dozens of performances of concertos by
Knussen and Salonen, Thomas Adès, and especially John Adams, who wrote his most recent
violin concerto, “Scheherazade. 2” (described as a “dramatic symphony for solo violin and
orchestra”) for her, and whose first violin concerto she recently recorded with David Robertson
and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, to be released later this year.

“I feel like I sort of came into this at a very crucial [time],” she says. “When I started work with
John Adams, he was really just starting to skyrocket into being the composer that he is. His first
violin concerto had already been written and performed a few times. I thought, ‘This is
something really different that I can get excited about.’ Oliver Knussen’s piece had been written
too . . . and Tom Adès’s as well. These pieces were ready to be taken around by an obsessive like
me ready to devote all their energies to communicating these pieces. . . . I just couldn’t go along
the conservative path.” She continues to focus on new commissions. “Once a year is not
realistic,” she says, “but at least every other year.” The next two are by younger composers,
Andrew Norman and Daniel Bjarnason, “a very exciting composer from Iceland.”

She walks an interesting line between unconventionality and orthodoxy. Apart from Kaija
Saariaho, whose music she played at her Kennedy Center recital in November, most of her
favorite composers are white and male; she reacts vehemently to the idea of selecting a composer
by any criteria other than her own visceral response (like, for instance, gender). “When I hear
something in conjunction with looking at the score,” she says, “I literally have sort of a physical
reaction to it — not if I dislike it, but if I really like it I get sort of a fire inside. It happens every
single time I’ve made a decision to go with something. I know that if I don’t get that feeling, I
don’t love it enough. . . . It’s not a decision; it’s like I have to do it.”

And when she does do it, it goes deep into her memory bank.

“When we were recording the Adams violin concerto,” says Robertson, the conductor, “it was
almost spooky, like random access memory we know from computers. I would say, ‘We’re
going from here,’ and she would be there. . . . It’s like you can drop the needle anywhere on the
LP.”

“A lot of times,” he continues, “when people have that incredible mnemonic dexterity, they need
to do something quite similar every time or it goes out of the groove. However, somehow she’s
absorbed the material. It’s organic within her. When you do three or four performances with her
of something, [it’s remarkable] to hear it continue to expand and never be the same thing. . . . She
can play Tchaikovsky, or Paganini, but what really gets her excited is this engaged musical
discourse that her contemporaries have. She is able to invest it with this mother-tongue quality.
She speaks the language of the composer without waiting 50 years for everybody to catch up.”

Josefowicz doesn’t memorize everything. “There are certain languages that lend themselves
more easily, at least in my weird brain, to memorization than others,” she says. She also doesn’t
absorb everything at first playing. “These scores, some of them, are so difficult and require
time,” she says. “It’s one thing to understand the language that they’re writing, and another thing
to make that language a natural part of your playing and sort of mental state.”

It’s becoming a cliche to portray performing artists as just folks who happen to have this
remarkable gift on the side. This is disingenuous. It takes fiendish focus to create this kind of
artistry, from childhood on. Although Josefowicz’s parents wanted her to have as normal a
school experience as possible, enrolling her in public schools even after the family, originally
from Canada, moved from California to Philadelphia so Josefowicz could attend Curtis, one of
the preeminent conservatories in the United States. “Nothing about it was normal,” she says now.

But there is plenty of life outside music, which is more “normal” than many major soloists can
manage. A self-described “SoulCycle fanatic” and yoga practitioner, she has wide-ranging pop-
music tastes (Amy Winehouse and David Bowie are among her heroes). She is also raising three
children ages 3, 5, and 17, from two marriages, “solo with my mom,” she says. Her mother
comes down from Canada to help out when she goes on the road. “It’s very busy around here,”
she says, “but it gives me a lot, and I don’t think I would be as good a player if I didn’t have
these people in my life.”

Breaking free of the prescriptions and finding her own way has yielded abundant rewards,
internal and external — like the MacArthur “genius” grant she was awarded in 2008, when she
was 30.

“Part of my goal was for people to trust me,” she says. “Administrations, orchestras, audiences.
If I choose a new work, I hope they would think there’s something interesting about this that I
would like them to hear. It doesn’t mean everybody’s going to love it, but that they find it
interesting in some way or get something different out of it. Even if it’s something as simple as, I
heard a new sound tonight. Or I got a new almost tactile feeling from this certain chord. You can
even dislike it, and dislike it a lot, and that’s a reaction. I’m hoping to rouse people in some way.
I guess what I would like the least is if they didn’t feel anything.”
15

February 22, 2018

NSO guest conductor Marek Janowski breathes new life

into old program
By Robert Battey

This week’s National Symphony Orchestra program didn’t set my pulse racing when I saw it last
year — three overplayed works from the mid-19th-century German canon — but the lack of
breadth was more than compensated for by the urgent, variegated interpretations of guest
conductor Marek Janowski.

He blew the dust off everything, making the NSO musicians sit up and take notice. While not
wholly successful, last evening’s performance at the Kennedy Center unfolded with an
engros­sing what’s­going-to-happen-next vibe, which I didn’t think was possible in such familiar
repertoire.

In Weber’s Euryanthe Overture, Janowski, a veteran opera conductor, gave an object lesson in
storytelling as music-making. He infused solid orchestra leadership with an in-depth knowledge
of the opera’s plot. This double layer of control made the ghost scene shiver marvelously and the
triumphal march strut with extra pomp. Though the NSO hadn’t done it in a long time, the piece
felt both alive and lived-in.

Violinist Stefan Jackiw, making his NSO debut, is in his early 30s but looks half that. A lithe,
charismatic player, he seemed to be fencing with the Bruch Concerto rather than caressing it,
every non-lyrical gesture a slashing one. To be sure, there was much gentle and imaginative
playing in the Adagio, the tone whispering, keening and sometimes singing, but in the virtuoso
passages elsewhere, he seemed to be mainly about speed. Though his bow arm produced lines of
immaculate purity, his vibrato doesn’t grow organically out of the sound — it’s applied, like
makeup, but here with spots missing. Janowski’s long experience in accompanying singers made
for a very satisfying collaboration. I’ve rarely heard the NSO match a soloist so well, both in
ensemble and balance.

The NSO did Brahms C Minor Symphony just a couple of years ago, with Christoph
Eschenbach, so the experience of being led by someone who is all business and knows precisely
what he wants must be a little jarring. Janowski took both of the middle movements faster than
I’ve ever heard, and certainly faster than the orchestra was used to. In the Un poco allegretto, the
musicians weren’t sure when, or whether, to breathe, and the oboe and clarinet solos early in the
Andante came off as slightly frantic.

That said, this interpretation was soaring and vital. Janowski has mastered the trick of
underlining details without slowing down for them, and thus the splendor of Brahms’s
architecture was the focus, rather than the decorations. Janowski prepared and shaped the many
climaxes but would not tarry even for the most foudroyant of them. He put a good deal of
attention on balances and drew many (and sometimes unusual) colors. With all eight NSO basses
configured to produce a crucial low C, and Lewis Lipnick’s contraforte glowering in the depths,
the sonority was especially rich and dark. While not the most “expressive” reading, then, this had
backbone and direction. I hope the NSO has Janowski back often.

The program will be repeated Friday morning at 11:30 and Saturday at 8 p.m..