Announcing the 2024–2025 Fortas Chamber Music Concerts Season

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JENNIFER KOH'S FIRST FULL SEASON OF PROGRAMMING

EIGHT CONCERTS ANCHORED BY THEMES OF
EVOLUTION, MENTORSHIP, TRADITION, AND INNOVATION IN CHAMBER MUSIC
Featuring Six Beethoven String Quartets
Jennifer Koh Performs Bach's Complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin

SOUNDS OF US: AN IMMERSIVE NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL
November 16, 2024

TWO RECITALS IN THE CONCERT HALL
Pianist Yunchan Lim | April 27, 2025
Pianist Maria João Pires | May 27, 2025

THREE CLASSICAL NEW MUSIC PERFORMANCES
Sphinx Virtuosi | October 19, 2024
Third Coast Percussion | February 6, 2025
Balún | February 27, 2025

(WASHINGTON)-The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces the 2024-2025 Fortas Chamber Music Concerts and classical new music season-Artistic Director Jennifer Koh's first full season of programming. Performances by esteemed ensembles, as well as burgeoning artists, will include a chain of Beethoven String Quartets, highlighting the composer's artistic evolution as well as the evolution of musical forms.

This season's Fortas series is augmented by a pair of recitals in the Concert Hall, a classical new music series, and Sounds of US, a one-day immersive music festival created and curated by Jennifer Koh. Sounds of US on November 16 seeks to underscore the passing of performance tradition from one generation to the next.

"I am honored to announce my inaugural season of programming for Fortas Chamber Concerts and classical new music at the Kennedy Center," Artistic Director Jennifer Koh said. "This season we celebrate the artistry of both composers and performers and how their work evolves over the course of their lives, as well as the passing of musical traditions from one generation to the next."

Fortas Chamber Music Concerts
Throughout the season, celebrated quartets will perform a mix of standard and contemporary repertoire, all linked by Beethoven String Quartets. Isidore String Quartet will open the Fortas main subscription series on October 30, 2024. Isidore String Quartet presented Billy Childs' String Quartet No. 2, "Awakening" in its 2023 debut in the Justice Forum and next season will present Childs' next installation, String Quartet No. 3, "Unrequited," along with Mozart's String Quartet No. 19 and Beethoven's String Quartet No. 12.

The Jasper String Quartet follows on December 5, 2024 with Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13. Additionally, the ensemble will present William Grant Still's Lyric String Quartette and Vivian Fung's String Quartet No. 2.

Performing the next of Beethoven's later quartets, No. 14, is Miró Quartet on December 19, 2024. Along with Haydn's Quartet in G Major, Miró will present Caroline Shaw's Microfictions, [Volume 1], which was given its world premiere by the group in 2021. The piece itself is inspired by the art of the ensemble's namesake, Joan Miró.

The renowned Takács Quartet returns to the Terrace Theater on April 29, 2025 as it celebrates is landmark 50th season. Highlighting the transformational nature of Beethoven's work, the ensemble will perform the composer's earliest and latest string quartets, Nos. 1 and 16, flanking Benjamin Britten's String Quartet No. 2.

On January 30, 2025, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is joined by violist Matthew Lipman and pianist Tamar Sanikidze performing works by Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Paired with this classical repertoire is a new piece by Joel Thompson, commissioned by Music Accord.

The Fortas Chamber Music Concerts Green Shoots initiative, coming into its third season, will feature one of the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipients, the Balourdet Quartet, in its debut with the series on March 11, 2025. Composed of graduates of the New England Conservatory, the ensemble's concert will spotlight the D.C. Premiere of a new work commissioned for Paul Novak. Continuing the Beethoven thread, the group will perform Beethoven's String Quartet No. 7, prefaced with Mozart's String Quartet No. 23. Launched by former Fortas Artistic Director Joseph "Yossi" Kalichstein in the 2022-2023 season with the Isidore String Quartet, the Green Shoots initiative annually features a burgeoning ensemble with the goal of fostering growth within the current generation of young musicians.

To close the season, Koh will perform Bach's Complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin on June 8, 2025. Performing the complete works, which takes more than two hours, is a difficult feat, and presented today by very few recitalists. Both a physical and emotional challenge, the performance will underscore Koh's artistry while highlighting her close relationship to chamber music tradition.

Sounds of US
Drawing inspiration from America's 250th anniversary, Sounds of US is an immersive new music festival that asks people to imagine the future they want to live in for the next 250 years. Created and curated by Jennifer Koh, the one-day festival, taking place on November 16, 2024, will fill The REACH with nonstop music and visual art with four mainstage concerts in Studio K alternating with free performances in the Peace Corps Gallery.

Commissioned by ARCO Collaborative for this event, more than 40 new works will be premiered during the festival. Notable composers of these commissions include Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence Carlos Simon, Angélica Negrón, Vijay Iyer, Nina Young, David Ludwig, and others. In support of mentorship and education, commissions will also come from students of The Juilliard School and Georgetown University. The National Symphony Orchestra's Youth Fellows, along with other artists, will give the premieres.

A focal point of Sounds of US will be the world premiere of a commissioned work from Angélica Negrón called Hear Here that incorporates sounds from people across the country. The nation-wide campaign will ask participants to send a brief video clip of a sound that represents home to them.

"I am thrilled to launch Sounds of US, a day-long celebration of new music that not only invites artists to dream up what music will sound like in years to come, but also invites you to become part of these new works by contributing your own voice that will be woven into the music," said Koh. "Advocating for others has been a highlight of my career and I am so happy to create and foster a new partnership between the Kennedy Center and ARCO Collaborative, the organization commissioning the new works. Please join me in this celebration of our present day and beyond!"

Recitals
Korean piano sensation Yunchan Lim will present Bach's Goldberg Variations in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on April 27, 2025 in a co-presentation with Washington Performing Arts. Lim, age 20, was the youngest person ever to win gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022. Renowned pianist, Maria João Pires will give a recital in the Concert Hall on May 27, 2025.

Classical New Music
As the landscape of chamber music today shifts to include new music, diverse artists and composers, and innovative musical settings, Fortas Chamber Music Concerts uplifts new artists and styles through its presentation of contemporary works and ensembles.

In a co-presentation with Washington Performing Arts on October 19, 2024, Sphinx Virtuosi, a chamber orchestra, will perform a program of American composers including Scott Joplin, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Juantio Becenti, Derrick Skye, and more, featuring percussionist Britton-René Collins.

Featured in the Club at Studio K on February 6, 2025, Third Coast Percussion will present its own arrangements of several pieces by Philip Glass, and works by Jlin and Tyondai Braxton. Later that month on February 27, 2025, Balún, helmed by Angélica Negrón, will present a concert of original works. The music of the Brooklyn-based group, which identifies as transnational, receives inspiration from everything from Latin to Jamaican styles.

About Fortas Chamber Music Concerts
The 2024-2025 season will mark the 43rd season of the Kennedy Center's chamber music series, established in the 1981-1982 season by Marta Istomin, who, at the time, was the Kennedy Center's Artistic Director. The Fortas Chamber Music Concerts, established as part of the Terrace Concerts during the 1983-1984 season, began a vibrant new life in the 1999-2000 season when-in addition to the generous contributions of loyal supporters of the Fortas Fund-income from a major gift to the Fortas Fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas, became available to support the artistic programming. The Fortas Chamber Music Concerts series is named for the former Supreme Court Justice, who was instrumental in the creation of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and later, the Terrace Theater. The Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees established the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund in 1982 for the support of concerts in the Terrace Theater, and for the further development of the musical programs he envisioned. Major support for Fortas Chamber Music Concerts continues to be provided by this fund.

Fortas Chamber Music Concerts is under the artistic direction of violinist Jennifer Koh, who was appointed to the position in December 2022. Koh follows the late Joseph "Yossi" Kalichstein, who served as the Kennedy Center's Artistic Advisor for Chamber Music and Artistic Director of the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts from 1997-2022.

Through its history the series has featured frequent appearances by artists such as the Guarneri, Emerson, Juilliard, Takács, Dover, and Alban Berg Quartets; early music ensembles Anonymous 4, Trio Medieval, and the Waverly Consort; performances by Eugene Istomin, Emanuel Ax, Edgar Meyer, Susan Graham, Isaac Stern, and Yo-Yo Ma; as well as many other distinguished artists and ensembles that actively perform and commission new works.

About Jennifer Koh
Fortas Chamber Music Concerts Artistic Director, Grammy Award^®-winning violinist Jennifer Koh is recognized for her intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. She is a forward-thinking artist dedicated to exploring a broad and eclectic repertoire, while promoting equity and inclusivity in classical music. She has expanded the contemporary violin repertoire through a wide range of commissioning projects and has premiered more than 100 works written especially for her.

In the 2023-2024 season, Koh continues her New American Concerto series, an ongoing, multi-season commissioning project that explores the form of the violin concerto and its potential for artistic engagement with contemporary societal concerns and issues through commissions from a diverse collective of composers. She performs the seventh world premiere in the series, Nina Young's Violin Concerto Traces with the LA Chamber Orchestra, as well as Vijay Iyer's Trouble and Missy Mazzoli's Procession with orchestras around the world. Koh also performs works from her critically acclaimed solo and duo commissioning projects including Alone Together, Bach and Beyond, Bridge to Beethoven, Limitless, and Shared Madness. As Fortas' Artistic Director, she performed twice on the concert series at the Kennedy Center. First, Two X Four (two violinists x four composers), joining forces with her mentor Jaime Laredo and members of the Juilliard Orchestra in double-violin concertos by Bach, Philip Glass, David Ludwig, and Anna Clyne; and second, she was joined by Missy Mazzoli for an all-Mazzoli program of solo violin and duo works.

Koh has appeared with orchestras worldwide including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; Cleveland, Mariinsky, Minnesota, and Philharmonia (London) orchestras; and Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, BBC, Chicago, Cincinnati, National, New World, NHK, RAI (Torino), and Singapore symphonies. Named Musical America's 2016 Instrumentalist of the Year, and "A force of nature" by the American Composers Orchestra in 2019, Koh has won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Concert Artists Guild Competition, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has a bachelor of arts in English literature from Oberlin College and studied at the Curtis Institute, where she worked extensively with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir. She is an active lecturer, teacher, and recording artist for Cedille Records. Koh is also artistic director of arco collaborative, an artist-driven nonprofit that fosters a better understanding of our world through a musical dialogue inspired by ideas and the communities around us.

Ticket Information
Tickets are available at the Kennedy Center Box Office, online at kennedy-center.org, and via phone through Instant Charge, (202) 467-4700; toll-free at (800) 444-1324. For all other ticket-related customer service inquires, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540.

Funding Credits
The Fortas Chamber Music Concerts are supported by generous contributors to the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund, and by a major gift to the fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas.

For more information, please visit the Kennedy Center website.

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