All upcoming Music & Theater programs

Composing is solitary work, but artistry cannot flourish in isolation. Whether reclusive or gregarious, socially inept or beloved and charming, all successful composers were supported by a wide network of friends, family, fellow professionals and patrons. From Mozart and Haydn to Richard Wagner and Ludwig II of Bavaria to Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, speaker and concert pianist Rachel Franklin examines some of these fascinating associations and the inspiring music that we owe to them.

Join fellow Broadway lovers in a choral program celebrating some of the great songs from the Great White Way. Drawing from shows such as West Side Story, Hair, and Wicked, choral conductor and music educator Ernest Johnson leads the ensemble in arrangements of the tunes you know and love. No audition is required. Rehearsals culminate in a free performance on June 6.

For roughly a decade beginning in the late 1940s, NBC and CBS offered viewers live original dramas. These anthology programs, such as “Kraft Television Theatre” and “Ford Television Theatre,” launched the careers of directors like Arthur Penn and John Frankenheimer, actors like Paul Newman and James Dean, and playwrights like Paddy Chayefsky and Rod Serling. Media historian Brian Rose looks at the forces that made this golden age such an intriguing chapter in TV history.

Composing is solitary work, but artistry cannot flourish in isolation. Whether reclusive or gregarious, socially inept or beloved and charming, all successful composers were supported by a wide network of friends, family, fellow professionals and patrons. From Mozart and Haydn to Richard Wagner and Ludwig II of Bavaria to Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, speaker and concert pianist Rachel Franklin examines some of these fascinating associations and the inspiring music that we owe to them.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of his bloodiest and most haunting plays, distinguished by its recurrent use of the supernatural. Joseph Luzzi, professor of literature at Bard College, guides you through the rich verbal intricacies and captivating themes of the play, especially its treatment of political ambition and the nature of the monarchy. An analysis of the psychological makeup of main characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth leads to considering what made Shakespeare such an astute student of human nature.

Join fellow Broadway lovers in a choral program celebrating some of the great songs from the Great White Way. Drawing from shows such as West Side Story, Hair, and Wicked, choral conductor and music educator Ernest Johnson leads the ensemble in arrangements of the tunes you know and love. No audition is required. Rehearsals culminate in a free performance on June 6.

Filmmaker and cultural historian Sara Lukinson explores more glorious songs from the Great American Songbook with stories about their long, often-unexpected lives. The spring lineup covers songs that are considered “simply the best”—ageless and favorite beauties by Harold Arlen.

Join fellow Broadway lovers in a choral program celebrating some of the great songs from the Great White Way. Drawing from shows such as West Side Story, Hair, and Wicked, choral conductor and music educator Ernest Johnson leads the ensemble in arrangements of the tunes you know and love. No audition is required. Rehearsals culminate in a free performance on June 6.

“Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery illuminates the accomplishments of 60 women who crossed the Atlantic to pursue personal and professional aspirations in the vibrant cultural milieu of Paris. Robyn Asleson, the gallery’s curator of prints and drawings, provides an overview of the first exhibition to focus on the impact of American women on Paris—and of Paris on American women­—as she discusses portraits of Josephine Baker, Isadora Duncan, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Anna May Wong, among others. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

A groundbreaking fusion of classical music and jazz, Rhapsody in Blue is one of America's most beloved cultural icons. Pianist and speaker Rachel Franklin celebrates its very big birthday by diving into how George Gershwin conceived the work; the roles of arranger Ferde Grofé and bandleader Paul Whiteman; and the composition's myriad reincarnations since its exuberant February 1924 premiere with its composer at the piano.