The New York Times
Classical: Kennedy Center Festival
By William Robin
March 5 to 19; www.kennedy-center.org.
Under the direction of Deborah Rutter, the traditionalist Kennedy Center in Washington has inched into the 21st century: In recent seasons, it has engaged compelling artists like Q-Tip and Jason Moran to oversee programming across genres. The latest initiative is the new festival Direct Current, a celebration of contemporary culture that ranges from the performance artist Taylor Mac (March 6) to the hip-hop duo Shabazz Palaces (March 17).
The festival’s most promising contemporary classical offerings include music by John Cage and Viet Cuong, played by the ensemble So Percussion (March 9); a survey of Philip Glass’s complete études by a team of pianists including Mr. Moran and Mr. Glass (March 9); Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Anthracite Fields” (March 13); and the environmentalist documentary “The Colorado,” featuring live music from Roomful of Teeth (March 18). The biggest ticket, though, may be the National Symphony Orchestra performing John Adams’s potent oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” under Gianandrea Noseda, himself in the midst of a promising first season as the orchestra’s music director (March 8 and 10).