Country Comes to Town
OVER THE NEXT THREE WEEKS, the phrase "just a little bit country" will apply to the Kennedy Center as it hosts "Country: A Celebration of America's Music." Between March 20 and April 9, in association with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, it will serve up a handful of concerts, some in the hallowed concert halls, some on the more populist (and free) Millennium Stage. The purpose is to strengthen country music's storied relevance as an important voice of, by and for the people.
"I'm proud we're at a point where country music and the Kennedy Center can embrace each other, because country music has long since evolved to be a cultural icon," says singer-guitarist-historian Marty Stuart, who headlines a Grand Ole Opry tribute March 26.
  Marty Stuart joins a lineup of numerous country music performers for the Kennedy Center's "Country: A Celebration of America's Music." (2003 Photo By Mark Humphrey -- Associated Press) |
"Whether you play the Ryman Auditorium [in Nashville] or Carnegie Hall or the Kennedy Center," Stuart says, "there's those places and then there's everywhere else. Those places are special, unique places inside the walls of America; when you're getting to play your music on any of those three stages, it's an honor within itself."
"Along with jazz, country music is America's music," says Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser, calling it "a uniquely American form of artistic expression."
But jazz had a much more substantial standing at the nation's performing arts center long before a late '90s televised jazz gala that also happened to be titled "A Celebration of America's Music." In the center's 35-year history, the number of jazz concerts has been in the hundreds, country concerts in the dozens.
The upcoming "Celebration" is the center playing catch-up.
"I started thinking about this three years ago," says Kaiser, who recently celebrated his fifth year heading the nation's busiest arts center, one best known for its classical, opera, dance, musical and theater offerings.
"First of all, I happen to like country music, but that's not why we do the work here," Kaiser says. "I felt it hadn't been taken seriously by arts centers in this country, though it is an indigenous American art form. And I thought it needed something more than a one-night country music [event] that comes and then is gone."
According to Kaiser, "Most performing arts centers are really focused on a particular few art forms. They do their theater season or their symphony season, their ballet or modern dance season, and country music doesn't fit neatly into one of those series.
"What we try and do at the center is to bring [different] arts to our audiences through a festival format but then to integrate some of those performers and types of performances into our series going forward. This is our first salvo with country music, if you will, but certainly not our last."
Country music will arrive Whitman's Sampler-style: the Grand Ole Opry tribute in conjunction with the Opry's 80th anniversary; Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack and Wynonna teaming with legends Ray Price and Kris Kristofferson; a showcase for country's String Masters. The Millennium Stage, which hosts free concerts daily, will do its part, from an official opening concert by bluegrass pioneer Earl Scruggs to a closing concert-and-dance finale with Texas swing zealots Asleep at the Wheel; novices can bone up on country dancing beforehand in a series of Performance Plus arts education programs. Weather permitting, the Asleep at the Wheel finale will be held outside on the South Plaza.
Gill, the festival's honorary co-chair with former Washingtonian Emmylou Harris, thinks the lineup is a good, and representative, one.
