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Concerts and Events Schedule
2008-2009 Season
The Nutcracker and Peer Gynt, Arranged by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn
Full Orchestra
Sat., Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m.
Celebrate the season with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s 1960 adaptations of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Grieg's Peer Gynt. To recreate these classics, Ellington and Strayhorn developed a blend of classic thematic materials, faithfully rendering the melodies while mixing in their characteristic horn colorations and chordal voicing’s. The result includes titles such as “Peanut Brittle Brigade” (originally the “March”), “Volga Vouty” (originally “Russian Dance”), and “Toot Toot Tootie Toot” (originally the “Dance of the Reed Pipes”).
The New Jazz Standards
Full Orchestra
Sat., Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m.
In an era of musical innovation, new creative approaches were taken to the orchestration of the jazz ensemble as new harmonic concepts created vehicles for longer, freer improvisation. This music came straight from the source: the jazz musician. Highlights included John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” a hallmark of virtuosic jazz, and the subtle, modal “So What” that helped define the musical voice of Miles Davis.
Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and His Modal Period
Small Ensemble
Sat., April 4, 7:30 p.m.
Kind of Blue, recorded in 1959, was not only one of Miles Davis's masterworks but one of the most influential albums in jazz history. Davis’s new formulation--influenced by George Russell’s book Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization--used scales or a series of scales for improvisations and became known as “modal.” Modality was the framework for Kind of Blue, which included “So What,” “Freddie Freeloader,” and “All Blues”--all destined to become classic tunes.
Thelonious Monk’s 1959 Town Hall Concert
Full Orchestra
Sat., June 6, 7:30 p.m.
Thelonious Monk organized a 10-piece ensemble to interpret his compositions in a concert at New York’s Town Hall in 1959. Monk asked arranger Hall Overton, a Juilliard-trained composer, to orchestrate the compositions for this project, including a remarkable transcription of Monk's original piano solo on "Little Rootie Tootie.” Overton’s transcriptions preserve Monk’s quirky voicings and harmonic ideas while expanding the ideas to 10 musicians.
All concerts are ticketed. Visit Resident Associates for ticketing information.
Workshops and other educational activities can be arranged. The SJMO is available for local, regional, national and international bookings for concerts, residencies, festivals, corporate events and dances.
To Contact Us: call, write, or e-mail:
Smithsonian Institution
ATT: SJMO
NMAH B1026, MRC 603
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
Telephone: 202-633-3587
Kennith Kimery, Executive Producer, kimeryk@si.edu
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