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Drew Peterson, pianist
Josephine Baker
John Edward Hasse, guest curator
Felix Conteras, conga
Ellington Carthan, pianist and narrator
Jeffrey Mumford, guest curator
Annie Jacobs-Perkins, cello
Katerina Burton, soprano
CAAPA Choir
Robin De Jesús, actor
David Strathairn, actor
Kevork Mourad, artist
Derek Goldman, playwright/director
José Sacín, bass baritone (Don Quihote)
Israel Lozano, tenor (Master Peter)
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano (Trujaman)
Ricardo Marlow, Flamenco guitar
Philip Kennicott, guest curator
Hany Hassan FAIA, visuals
David Taylor:  KillerThe New York Times

Mahler's Fourth: A Wicked New Look

A bass trombonist extraordinaire…(whose) voice has defined the instrument.”- Jazzed Magazine, on David Taylor

Hailed as “wildly adventurous” by The Washington Post, PostClassical Ensemble (PCE) will present Mahler’s Fourth: A Wicked New Look for one night only. Featuring Bass Trombone virtuoso, David Taylor, and the stage debut of eighteen year-old soprano Madeleine Murnick, the evening will explore Mahler’s turn-of-the-century Vienna, which witnessed an artistic explosion that mixed traditional sounds with folk influences from across the Austro-Hungarian empire. The never-before-heard rearrangement, recast specifically for chamber orchestra and bass trombone, will highlight Mahler’s presages to the emergence of jazz. The music’s inner conflicts and contradictions allow listeners to better access the composer’s own struggles with living as an assimilated Jewish artist in a creatively liberating, yet deeply anti-Semitic Vienna. Whether you’ve heard Mahler’s Fourth a thousand times or never before, this evening promises to transport you to another place and time.

“Not in my wildest imaginings could I have envisioned such revelatory and shocking interpretations” -  Sudip Bose , The American Scholar, on Taylor's Schubert with PCE

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William Ritter, reviewing the premiere of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in Munich, wrote:

"The audience around us is just as bewildered as we are. We booed our heads off, as they boo only in Paris or in Italy! The plain fact is that, throughout the performance, one row of people after the other got the giggles...

It would be impossible to convey the sensation of madness that such a symphony arouses. What blinded us was the way it swung from the sublime to the ridiculous . . .

You rebel against this music. You reject it with all your wisdom, all your experience and all your convictions , but you’re fighting against your own pleasure, you’re trying to be virtuous. At bottom there’s nothing you like better. You’re defeated. Whether you will or not, you admire it! It was bound to happen that you, an anti-Semite, should be bowled over by admiration for something Jewish!"

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Program

READ Sudip Bose’s American Scholar review of David Taylor’s Schubert performances with PostClassical Ensemble

Watch David Taylor perform "Der Doppelgänger" by Franz Schubert with PCE at the Kennedy Center

Concert

Mahler's Fourth: A Wicked New Look

Wednesday April 20, 2022, 7:30 p.m

Terrace Theater, The Kennedy Center: 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC


David Taylor, bass trombone

Madeleine Murnick, soprano

PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordóñez

Produced by Joseph Horowitz

Program

Gustav Mahler: Funeral March (from Symphony No. 1)

      Arranged for chamber ensemble by Angel Gil-Ordóñez

Gustav Mahler: Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht (from Songs of a Wayfarer) (1884-1885)

     Arranged for bass trombone and chamber ensemble by Angel Gil-Ordóñez

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 (1899-1900)

        1.   Bedachtig, nicht eilen

        2.   In gemachlicher Bewegung, ohne Hast

(recast by Joseph Horowitz and Angel Gil-Ordóñez as Mahlerei for bass trombone and chamber ensemble)  

Premiere performance

         3.  Ruhevoll, poco adagio

        4. Sehr behaglich

Arranged for chamber ensemble by Klaus Simon (2007)


Post-Concert Discussion with Saul Lilienstein


This performance is an external rental presented in coordination with the Kennedy Center Campus Rentals Office and is not produced by the Kennedy Center.
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What people are saying

So many thanks for that most inspiring, capacious evening. With PCE’s usual ability to surprise and delight… that symphony was astonishing…

Kate

Your leadership and dramatic shaping of the Symphony last night was truly masterful - and so inspiring. I know I’ll never forget this experience. Thank you, Maestro!

Chris

I loved the intimacy of the ensemble and the aching beauty of the melody repeating and recurring and turning up where I did not expect it .  And I found the quality of the sound thrilling.

That was my take on the concert --that and the tears that it brought to my eyes, simply to be there, to be present at the creation of something so beautiful..

Michaele

What a perfect PCE evening, wonderful concert and lovely gathering

Liz

Angel, You are so musical! I've played the 4th twice, it was the first Mahler I heard as a kid, and I'm invariably disappointed that conductors don't let it breathe.  U nailed it.

David

Congratulations again to you and your superb ensemble on a wonderful and provocative performance in the Terrace Theater last evening.  As always, we learned something from this concert and it was fun, too.

Alec

Everything about it was sheer delight, including the lively and interesting talk at the end…

Catherine