Freer|Sackler Concert Series

Experience the painterly palette of sounds created by composers Claude Debussy and Enrique Granados in this concert celebrating the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth. The virtuosic Calefax Reed Quintet, from the Netherlands, performs its own lush arrangements of Debussy's works, which were deeply influenced by the American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler. This concert was presented as part of the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series on March 2, 2012, and made possible in part through support from the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts.

Experience the painterly palette of sounds created by composers Claude Debussy and Enrique Granados in this concert celebrating the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth. The virtuosic Calefax Reed Quintet, from the Netherlands, performs its own lush arrangements of Debussy's works, which were deeply influenced by the American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler. This concert was presented as part of the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series on March 2, 2012, and made possible in part through support from the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts.

Hear new and reconstructed music for an ancient West Asian harp that was preserved, along with other Silk Road treasures, at the Shoso-in, an eighth-century Japanese imperial storehouse in the temple city of Nara. Harp soloist Fuyuhiko Sasaki recreates the sound of the kugo (harp) in works commissioned for the National Theater of Japan and to commemorate the 1,200th anniversary of the city of Kyoto and honor the victims of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. He was joined by five other ensemble members on shakuhachi (flute), sho (mouth organ), hichiriki  (double-reeds), and haisho (panpipes). This concert was recorded at the Freer Gallery on February 22, 2012, as part of Music From Japan Festival 2012.

Hear Korea's most beloved folksong, "Arirang," interpreted by seven leading improvisers from Korea and New York. Led by Heo Yoon-jeong on zithers and Ned Rothenberg on reeds, the Tori Project treats five regional styles of "Arirang" to a compelling array of variations and extrapolations. This concert was recorded at the Freer|Sackler on December 8, 2011.

Hear new works for violin, cello, piano, erhu, and pipa composed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Zhou Long; Beijing-based composer Lu Pei; and Chen Yi, winner of the Charles Ives Living Award. Two outstanding ensembles--Music From China and Music From Copland House--join forces for this performance, presented as part of the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series on November 3, 2011.

Hear a gorgeous new concerto for the Japanese koto and Western string quartet by American composer Daron Hagen, who has written works for the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Kings Singers, among many others. Preceding that are two contrasting works for solo koto: a classical piece by seventeenth-century composer Kengyo Yatsuhashi and Yumi Kurosawa's own new work for the instrument. This concert was recorded in the Freer|Sackler's Meyer Auditorium as part of the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series on October 13, 2011.

For more on the koto and Yumi Kurosawa, mark your calendar for Look and Listen: Asian Art and Music on June 24, 2020.

During the era of Bach and Handel, European music traveled to Asia and the Americas with missionaries, merchants, and performers. This concert, recorded in 2011, features a sonata written by a Jesuit composer for the emperor of China in the Forbidden City in 1720, along with baroque music heard in Latin America and the newly founded United States.

Hear the driving rhythms and vocal gymnastics of qawwali, Sufi music from South Asia, performed by an ensemble based in Ajmer Sharif, one of India's most sacred Sufi shrines. Present throughout much of the Islamic world, Sufis seek to personally experience the divine through music, poetry, self-discipline, and contemplation. The Chishty order of Sufis was founded in India in the thirteenth century.

This recording was made live in concert at the Meyer Auditorium on April 30, 2011.

Enjoy virtuosic arrangements of feisty folk songs from China and Vietnam, along with new music evoking calm landscapes of Asia. These selections are drawn from performances by pianists Xiayin Wang, Jenny Lin, and Quynh Nguyen, who appeared at the Freer Gallery of Art in 2010 and 2011.

Grammy Award nominee Shujaat Khan is one of the leading exponents of Indian classical music. On the occasion of India's fiftieth anniversary of independence, he performed at New York's Carnegie Hall and for the United Nations at Assembly Hall in Geneva, Switzerland. He also has appeared at Royal Albert Hall in London, Royce Hall in Los Angeles, and Congress Hall in Berlin. With the innovative Indo-Persian trio Ghazal, he earned a Grammy nomination in 2004 for the group's third recording, Rain. This performance was recorded in concert at the Freer Gallery on April 30, 2010.