A Classical March

Another busy month for music in the nation’s capital. Those of you who haven’t yet visited the Music Center at Strathmore will want to find your way to North Bethesda to experience this beautiful new concert hall. Eri Klas leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore on March 3: The program will include works by Smetana, Tchaikovsky and Copland, as well as Gershwin’s Concerto in F with pianist Arnaldo Cohen.

The National Symphony Orchestra is also presenting one of its most promising concerts of the year on March 3, 4 and 5 at the Kennedy Center. Osmo Vanska will conduct the Symphony No. 5 and "The Oceanides" by Jean Sibelius (the last of which was the only work the great Finnish composer ever led in America, during a 1914 tour, in -- of all places -- Norfolk, Conn.) and the Violin Concerto in D by Johannes Brahms, with soloist Lisa Batiashvili.

They’re calling it the first opera ever presented at the MCI Center. In fact, Carl Orff’s "Carmina Burana" is a cantata, not an opera; but it may be hard to tell the difference on March 3, when a troupe called Monumental Opera comes to town with 30 dancers, an orchestra and chorus and what are said to be "300 lavish costumes." Sounds interesting, at least. O fortuna!

The Cathedral Choral Society will fill Washington National Cathedral with a program of "Russian Riches" on March 6. The afternoon will include not only the wildly popular (Tchaikovsky’s "1812" Overture) but the less-familiar (Rachmaninoff’s "The Bells") and even the downright obscure (Taneyev’s "John of Damascus," anybody?).

The China Philharmonic is in the midst of its first world tour. In addition to works by Bartok, Rachmaninoff and Rimsky-Korsakov, the orchestra’s Music Center at Srathmore program March 11 will include "Moon Reflected on the Erquan Fountain" by Hua Yanjun and Wu Zuquiang and "Das Lied auf der Erde," a work newly commissioned for this tour by Xiao Gang.

Both of Bach’s great "Passions" for chorus, soloists and orchestra will be performed this month. In fact, the "St. John Passion" will be done twice, the first time by the Washington Bach Consort on March 13 at National Presbyterian Church, and then again on March 20, when the Washington National Cathedral Choirs will present it there. Also on March 20, the Choral Arts Society of Washington will present the "St. Matthew Passion" at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

A newish group called the Post-Classical Ensemble will present Gustav Mahler’s "Song of the Earth" in Arnold Schoenberg’s chamber arrangement -- one great composer as heard through the ears of another -- at the Embassy of Austria on March 16. The traditional ensemble Music From China will also perform, in order to re-create the Chinese atmosphere that helped inspire the piece.

"Albert Herring" is one of Benjamin Britten’s more obscure operas. March 17 through March 20, you have a chance to see and hear it at the Catholic University of America’s Ward Recital Hall. Michael Scarola directs the performance; Sharon Christman serves as artistic director; and Stephen Czarkowski conducts.

On March 18, the Washington Performing Arts Society will bring the Kodo Drummers -- two dozen Japanese musicians and their gigantic drums, usually at full tilt -- to DAR Constitution Hall, about the only space in town that can handle such volume and ferocity.

Few choral works can rank with the Bach Passions, but Verdi’s Requiem is among them. On March 24, Stephane Deneve will lead the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Chorus and four soloists in this stirring work, the most operatic of all Requiems, at the Kennedy Center; the program will be repeated on March 25 and 26.

Soprano Mirella Freni is a living legend and now, with more than four decades of opera stardom behind her, she is not likely to be performing too much longer. As such, you’ll want to be there when she comes to the Kennedy Center in the Washington National Opera’s production of Tchaikovsky’s "Maid of Orleans'" beginning March 26. Bring your kids -- someday they’ll want to say they heard Freni.

Pianist Philippe Entremont made his United States debut at the National Gallery of Art 52 years ago. On March 27, he will be back in the West Building to play some of the music for which he is best known -- nuanced, bejeweled works by Debussy and Ravel, which will take on additional sheen amid the damp acoustics of the National Gallery.

Finally, "Failing Kansas," Mikel Rouse’s multimedia opera, will come to the George Mason Center for the Arts on March 30. Based on Truman Capote’s celebrated "nonfiction novel" "In Cold Blood," "Failing Kansas" is performed by the composer as a solo work on an empty stage, accompanied by prerecorded electronic music and film projections. The results are said to be chilling.