The Conservatory Project: Rice University & Eastman School of Music
3/31/2018

Target Family Night: Soapbox Nation Initiative
7/17/2018 at 6:00 PM

The top students from Mikva Challenge’s Soapbox Nation Initiative will get up on their soapbox and deliver moving speeches about the issues affecting them and their communities.  Calling their peers and adults to action on a variety of pressing issues, these powerful students will inspire and inform!

Stas Venglevski & Tatyana Krasnobaeva
7/16/2018 at 6:00 PM

The American Accordionists’ Association conference brings internationally acclaimed accordion artists Stas Venglevski and Tatyana Krasnobaeva will perform a program of music ranging in style from classical to modern. The unique combination of bayan and hammered dulcimer offers a beautiful sound.

NSO Summer Music Institute
7/15/2018 at 6:00 PM

IN THE CONCERT HALL

National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute (SMI) students play Bernstein’s Overture from Candide and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony, conducted by Abel Pereira.

Free general admission tickets will be distributed in the Hall of Nations starting at approximately 4:30 p.m., up to two tickets per person.

WNO Opera Institute
7/14/2018 at 6:00 PM

WNO Opera Institute is a three-week summer program at American University that brings passionate, talented young musicians together to experience opera in a professional and nurturing environment. The program has gained a reputation as one of the top pre-professional programs for high school musicians in the United States.

ÌFÉ
7/13/2018 at 6:00 PM

ÌFÉ is a bold new musical project from Puerto Rico based African American drummer/producer/singer Otura Mun. Mun, an Ifá priest or ‘Babalawo’ in the Yoruba religion, has been at the vanguard of the Puerto Rican music scene since arriving from Indiana US in the late 1990s, producing critically acclaimed albums and songs for many of the island’s most important musical voices, including Mima, Cultura Profetica and Calma Carmona. ÌFÉ is his first solo project.

ÌFÉ is the Yoruban word for “Love” as well as “Expansion.” Both are pivotal themes in the group’s music. “I wanted to make something that made me feel like when I’m playing, my soul is flying,” Mun says.

IIII+IIII, pronounced “Edgy-Og-Beh” is the title of the nine song debut album from ÌFÉ, a 45 minute opening ceremony that seems equal parts blessing, adoration, and manifesto.

From its opening track to its closing prayer the album conveys a deep sense of spiritual intent, a sureness in its voice and purpose that is both brave and bold while maintaining the vulnerability and unsureness that the most intimate and honest of conversations always require. It’s been clear from the beginning that ÌFÉ is in a space uniquely its own.

From the way in which the music is conceived, a live electronic performance, no programming, to its component parts, Cuban Rumba, Sacred Yoruba praise songs, Jamaican Dancehall, and American R&B, to the way it moves seamlessly from English to Spanish to Yoruba, the music is willfully out of genre, yet focused and clear in a way that makes its newness seem rare, compelling. Serene and floating at times, determined, erotic, and raw at others, the music is as improbable as it is natural, a youthful knowing sound, aware of the weight of its voice, the ground that’s been traveled, and the urgency and uncompromising fierceness needed to meet the day.