For an attention-grabbing concert title, how's this: "Lascivious Monks and French Insurgents"?
That's the cheeky program in store this weekend from the Washington Symphonic Brass.
Composed of top players drawn from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, U.S. military bands and other organizations in the region, the group has been enlivening things in the D.C. area for 15 years. It makes its Baltimore debut on Sunday.
Washington Symphonic Brass was co-founded by Milton Stevens, principal trombone of the NSO, and trumpeter Phil Snedecor, who recently joined the BSO. Since the sudden death last summer of Stevens, the ensemble has been without a regular conductor. Richard Westerfield, former associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, will lead Sunday's performance at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Church.
The program features selections from the group's recent, much-praised recording from Warner Classics of Carl Orff's popular choral work Carmina Burana, arranged for brass by Snedecor. This, of course, explains the concert's naughty monks reference - Carmina Burana was originally drawn from poems by medieval friars whose minds weren't entirely filled with religious thoughts.
As for the "French Insurgents," that covers arrangements of the Fanfare from the ballet score to La Peri by Paul Dukas, and excerpts from Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz and Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky.
"Since one of the definitions of an insurgent is 'one who rises in revolt against established authority,' we have characterized Berlioz and Stravinsky as French insurgents," Snedecor says. "Basically, these guys so revolted against the accepted norms of the established French musical society that their music was rejected.
As for the Dukas piece, "the ballet depicts descendants of fallen angels," Snedecor says, "a fitting intro to our French Insurgents."
The concert is 3 p.m. Sunday at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1316 Park Ave. Tickets are $10 to $25. Call 866-962-7277 or go to wsbrass .com.
Operatic 'Our Town'
Thornton Wilder's Our Town, among the quintessential works of American theater, recently inspired a significant addition to the repertoire of American opera. Although Wilder, who died in 1975, never granted permission for an operatic treatment of his iconic play, his nephew Tappan Wilder, executor of his estate, gradually warmed to the idea and made an apt choice of composer: the Pulitzer Prize-winner Ned Rorem.
The octogenarian Rorem, known for his intellectually brilliant and strongly communicative music, created this new Our Town with librettist J.D. McClatchy. The opera was premiered in 2006 by the Indiana University Opera Theater.
The first production in our region will be offered as part of the Catholic University President's Festival of the Arts. This venture by CU's School of Music will be directed by James Hampton and conducted by Murray Sidlin.
To provide greater context and room for plenty of discussion, the festival also offers a staging of the Wilder play by CU's music-theater program and drama department. Performances of the two Our Town versions will alternate.
There will also be a panel discussion with Rorem, McClatchy and Tappan Wilder; the premiere of operas based on Wilder short stories by CU students and faculty; and film screenings of Hollywood's Our Town (1940), starring William Holden, and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943), which had a screenplay by Wilder.
The festival runs Monday to March 2. The Rorem opera will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28 and March 1 at CU's Hartke Theatre, 620 Michigan Ave. N.W. Tickets are $10 and $20. Call 202-319-5414 or go to music.cua .edu.
tim.smith@baltsun.com