Murder in a Cathedral, American Music, and more on WETA Classical this week

Let's sample 3 different concerts featuring a beloved local ensemble committed to contemporary music and living composers.

We are fortunate to have an ensemble like the 21st Century Consort in the Washington DC area. In this program we hear a variety of styles, music inspired by breakdowns in discourse, spontaneity of music in the moment, and a powerful work written as a prayer to the earth and a prayer for peace. 

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​Premiered in 1958, Pizzetti's Assassinio nella cattedrale is based on Italian translation of T. S. Eliot's 1935 play, "Murder in the Cathedral", that depicts the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170 at Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II of England.  A production of Opera Festival of Chicago, led by Emanuele Andrizzi.

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American choral music on this weekend's Choral Showcase, with new recordings of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, and Jennifer Higdon's O magnum mysterium. And from Robert Maggio, a new work exploring masculine identity in the 21st century: Man Up/Man Down, with the Constellation Men's Ensemble.

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This we​ek we hear a mambo for harp, one of Debussy’s earliest works, a Spiritual arranged by composer Margaret Bonds, and a fiddle finale with a 12-year-old national champion.

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Join us at every weekday sunrise for your musical cup of joe to start your day on Classical Sunrise. This week's selections:

• Monday 7:25AM Sibelius - Valse Chevaleresque
• Tuesday 7:26AM  Alfvén - The Prodigal Son: Festival March
• Wednesday 7:27AM Beethoven -  Piano Trio, Op. 11: III 
• Thursday 7:28AM Wagner - Lohengrin: Prelude to Act III 
• Friday 7:29AM Copland - : Rodeo: Buckaroo Holiday

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