Archive for the Announcement Category

Baritone Jerome Barry, Artistic Director of the Embassy Series concerts, has been the teacher of many aspiring singers in the Washington area. He therefore has a special knowledge of the art song across cultural traditions. Barry, who delights in welcoming audiences or performers in any one of the major European languages, had put together a brilliant concept, a concert to be offered at both the Hungarian Embassy and the Polish Embassy, on successive evenings, to showcase an important Polish-born mezzo-soprano and an emerging Hungarian tenor.

By Myron Belkind, The National Press Club There was no electricity, and so the first concert that the National Press Club co-sponsored with the city’s famed Embassy Series went ahead by candlelight. The more than 50 guests who attended the first of two nights of concerts arranged through […]

The performers were highly talented, the music was delightful, and the organization of the program conjured up the Viennese term “mit Schlag.” It was the inevitable richness of riches.

By Gary Tischler, The Georgetowner  Outside, it was a typical American-style Friday night in Dupont Circle, restaurants and watering holes busy, couples and groups of people wandering up and down the streets, a mild fall-like weekend night, outdoor dining, indoor imbibing. In that scene, the outside of […]

By Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post The young Finnish soprano Meri Siirala has a lustrous voice supple enough for the delicate innuendos and intimate inflections of the solo song, yet also capable of projecting the dramatic vigor necessary for the opera house. On Friday she sang songs […]

By Gary Tischler With all the great music and musicians, the social schmoozing opportunities, and the convivial receptions, the Embassy Series exists primarily as an effective tool to conduct cultural diplomacy.  Sometimes, an event can transcend mission and goals, and even the pure enjoyment of great music.  At the Lithuanian […]

By Stephen Neal Dennis After the success of Andres Segovia and Carlos Montaya in turning the guitar into a concert instrument, transcribing music by earlier composers into guitar arrangements, and encourging great composers in the Hispanic world to write new pieces for the instrument, there is now […]