Beyond Category: The Concert Music of Duke Ellington
April 16, 2024
The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater
You’ve never heard Duke Ellington like this! With a career that spanned 50 years, DC’s very own American icon, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, is known around the world for such jazz standards as Mood Indigo, Solitude, Take the “A” Train. But as Guest Curator, Dr. John E. Hasse, renowned Curator Emeritus of Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, will explain, Ellington sought to break out of stereotyped boxes and explore broader creative horizons. His masterworks include scores for ballet, opera, motion pictures, and Broadway musicals as well as for symphony orchestras. This spring we are joined by local up-and-coming jazz composer and pianist Ellington Carthan, to journey through the music of Duke Ellington’s extraordinary yet little-known concert pieces, including his magnificent Black, Brown, and Beige, the suite from the ballet The River, and the debut of Scott Silbert’s orchestration of Caravan featuring guest conguero Felix Contreras.