News Release: 29 April 1999

National Gallery of Art's Fifty-Sixth American Music Festival Begins 2 May 1999

Washington, DC--The National Gallery of Art begins its fifty-sixth American Music Festival on 2 May with a concert of orchestral music by American composers conducted by National Gallery music director George Manos. The program will include Robert Ward's Third Symphony, Aaron Copland's Quiet City, and the Suite for Chamber Orchestra by Douglas Moore. The festival continues every Sunday through 30 May.

It has been the tradition since 1986 to include jazz in the American Music Festival, and this year's jazz offering will be a concert by the Brubeck Brothers Quartet on 16 May. Daniel and Christopher Brubeck, continuing in the great tradition of their father, Dave Brubeck, will present an evening of jazz with keyboardist Pete Levin and guitarist Mike DeMicco.

The festival will also feature pianist William Black, whose recital on 9 May will include works by American composers from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Violinist Sally McLain and pianist Lisa Emenheiser Logan will perform on 23 May, presenting a program of works commissioned by the McKim Fund of the Library of Congress. Composers Anne LeBaron, Meyer Kupferman, Ned Rorem, and David Baker will be presented. On 30 May, the Bethesda, Maryland-based choir, Musikanten, will bring the festival to a close. Their concert will include choral works by Robert Evett, Nancy Wertsch, Norman Dinerstein, and Dominick Argento, as well as Dante's Praises to the Virgin Mother by the late Russell Woollen, who was active for many years as a composer and performer in the greater Washington, DC area.

Under the direction of Gallery music director George Manos since 1985, the American Music Festival was founded in 1944 and is the longest-running festival specializing in the music of American composers. The festival has been the scene of more than three hundred world premiere performances. Some of these works, such as Charles Ives' Symphony No. 1 and Daniel Pinkham's Symphony No. 4, have continued to attract attention. Other works, however, are not widely known to the public, and each year's American Music Festival provides some of those compositions with a well-deserved repeat Performance.

Concerts at the National Gallery of Art take place on Sundays at 7:00 p.m. in the West Garden Court of the West Building. Concertgoers are admitted on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning at 6:00 p.m. For further information about the concerts, call (202) 842-6941.

Fifty-Sixth American Music Festival

2 May - 30, 1999

MAY		PROGRAM
2	National Gallery Orchestra George Manos, conductor	Copland: Quiet City Douglas Moore: Suite for Chamber Orchestra Robert Ward: Symphony No.3
9	William Black, pianist	Reinagle: Sonata in D Gottschalk: Souvenir de Puerto Rico Hunter Johnson: Piano Sonata Bolcom: Three Ghost Rags Griffes: Piano Sonata
16	The Brubeck Brothers Quartet	Jazz concert
23	Sally McLain, violinist Lisa Emenheiser Logan, pianist	Anne LeBaron: Devil in the Belfry Kupferman: Fantasy Sonata Rorem: Night Music David Baker: Jazz Suite
30	Musikanten Kerry Krebill, music director (Last concert of the American Music Festival)	Hawley: Six Madrigals Argento: Peter Quince at the Clavier Works by Russell Woollen and Robert Evett

For more details see Sunday Concerts.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:

Press Office
National Gallery of Art
2000B South Club Drive
Landover, MD 20785
phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

Deborah Ziska
Chief of Press and Public Information
(202) 842-6353
ds-ziska@nga.gov

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