Wednesday, April 17th
Community event
Join in for the April Citizen’s Association of Georgetown Public Meeting and African-American History Celebration. Maurice Jackson, GU Professor and author of DC Jazz: Stories of Jazz Music in Washington, DC will lead a dynamic conversation with DC jazz greats Blair Ruble, Bridget Arnwine and Rusty Hassan. 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at Mount Zion Methodist Church, 1334 29th St. NW. Dues $75/annually. http://cagtown.org/join
Educational event
Sogetsu Ikebana: Modern Japanese Flower Arranging: The elegance and aesthetic harmony of ikebana—Japanese flower arranging—have inspired poets and artists since its founding. In this 6-session course for beginning and continuing students, participants learn basic styles of ikebana as taught by the Sogetsu School of Ikebana in Japan. 6:30 p.m at S. Dillon Ripley Center Room 3040, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW. Six week course tickets $200-$250. https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/sogetsu-ikebana-modern-japanese-flower-arranging?utm_source=SIMag&utm_medium=SIMagListing&utm_campaign=APR19-SIMag-JapaneseFlowers&promo=241492
Dinner event
City Tavern Club presents Hedrick Belin, President of the Potomac Conservancy, on the State of the Potomac River. As President, Hedrick provides strategic direction to Potomac Conservancy as it fights to improve the Potomac River and its surrounding lands through conservation and advocacy. Under his leadership, the Conservancy has launched several successful initiatives to promote river-friendly land use and to expand the base of volunteers actively engaged in the stewardship of our local green spaces. Menu includes Strawberry Apple Salad, Mahi Mahi, Mango-Pineapple Mousse Cake. 6:30 – 9:00 p.m. at the City Tavern Club, 3206 M St NW. Tickets $55 per person inclusive. Reservations at [email protected].
Thursday, April 18th
Poetry event
Carmen Giménez Smith’s work dissects the female body and society’s responses to it over centuries in language that can be both playful and serious. Her collections include Milk and Filth; Goodbye, Flicker, winner of the Juniper Prize, and, most recently, Cruel Futures. Her memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds: On Mothering, Art, Work, and Everything Else, received an American Book Award. Smith will perform a reading in response to exhibition Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla (I Am an Island). 6:30 at Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St NW. Tickets $15. https://www.phillipscollection.org/events/2019-04-18-poetry-reading?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=publicity&utm_content=April+2019+Media+Calendar+SL
Awards reception
The Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Short Play Showcase is a selection of short plays performed, with national finalists competing for the Gary Garrison National Ten-Minute Play Award and the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play, and features leading actors from the Washington, D.C. community. 6 p.m. at Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, 2700 F Street NW. Tickets Free. http://www,kennedy-center.org
GLAA of Washington, DC, announces its 2019 Distinguished Service Award recipients. GLAA presents awards to local individuals and organizations that have served the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the national capital area. The awards will be presented at GLAA’s 48th Anniversary Reception. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Lost Society, 2001 14th Street, NW. Tickets $50. http://www.glaa.org/anniversary
Luncheon event
How does the portrayal of women’s and LGBTQ issues on the current stage reflect or illuminate the way these issues are being played out in our social and political arenas? How does theater deal with these issues within its own ranks, notably the traditional dominance of white males in positions of power, of which the Me Too movement is just one manifestation? Serge Seiden, Award-winning Managing Director and Producer at Mosaic Theater, will cast light on these issues. 11:30 a.m. at the Women’s National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Avenue, NW. Tickets $30. https://democraticwoman.org/social-role-of-the-arts-serge-seiden/
Community Event
HIstoric Chevy Chase DC presents an Illustrated talk “It CAN Happen Here: Lessons from Arlington County” by Tom Dickinson with “before” and “after” photographs of houses and other buildings in Arlington that were demolished, and of what replaced them. Dickinson is a photographer and amateur historian/preservationist who’s taken more than 10,000 photos. He will suggest that neighborhoods in the District can learn from what’s happened as Arlington has pushed relentlessly to become “new and bigger.” 7:30 p.m. at Chevy Chase Community Center, 5601 Connecticut Ave., NW. Free.
Arts event
Join local artists Amy Wike and Esther Iverem for a discussion of their artworks featured in the exhibition Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & The Four Freedoms. Inspired by the legacies of Roosevelt and Rockwell, the exhibition invited contemporary artists to consider: “What does freedom look like today?” Wike and Iverem’s artworks explore these themes through the textile techniques of knitting and quilting. 12:00 p.m. at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, 701 21st Street NW. Free, no reservations required.
Friday, April 19th
Luncheon event
Once upon a time her face was on your shopping cart, but now her name is on the top national tracking chart for real estate sales. She’s Nancy Taylor Bubes, among the city’s most dedicated, and dogged, realtors and community supporters. Nancy will be the guest for the next Q&A Cafe. This will be an encore appearance as Nancy last joined Q & A when the show was at Nathans, a decade ago. Since then real estate values in Washington have gone every which way but down, and whole new neighborhoods have come on the buzz grid, while others have been consumed by gentrification. 11:30 a.m. at The George Town Club, 1530 Wisconsin Ave NW. Tickets $35. [email protected]
Saturday, April 20th
Musical event
With an assured maturity and vocal confidence far beyond her years, the young singer Jazzmeia Horn arrives with her debut recording A Social Call, an album that reveals a talent ready to take its place alongside the best headlining jazz vocalists of today. Released in May 2017 via Prestige, a division of Concord Music Group, its ten tracks—performed with an all-star acoustic jazz lineup—bristle with a bracing sense of clarity: clarity in Horn’s voice (itself a strong and remarkably supple instrument); clarity in the heady range of vocal legends who have shaped her (from Sarah Vaughan to Rachelle Ferrell); and clarity in the vital message of social uplift and the glowing optimism she conveys through her music. 8:00 p.m. at Coolidge Auditorium, 10 1st Street SE. Free. https://www.theartistryofjazzhorn.com/
Music frees the innermost vision of one’s soul. Experience a stimulating evening of transcendental sounds guided by multi-instrumentalist and producer OG Lullabies in Out of Body Synthesis. 6 p.m. at Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, 2700 F Street NW. Tickets Free. http://www.kennedy-center.org
Pianist Finghin Collins will perform Sonata in A Major, K. 331 “Alla Turca” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 119 by Johannes Brahms, and Sonata in A Major, D. 959 by Franz Schubert as part of the Washington Conservatory of Music’s Conservatory Concerts series. 8:00 p.m. at Westmoreland Congregational Church, One Westmoreland Circle, Bethesda, MD. Free, with a suggested donation of $20.
Community event
Annual Easter Egg Hunt. Celebrate the lasting legacy of Frederick Douglass’s at the National Park Service’s annual Easter Egg Hunt. Children ages 0-12 will hunt for Easter eggs, take pictures with the Easter bunny, play games on the lawn of Cedar Hill, and experience the power of place with ranger led tours of Douglass’s historic home. Join in the fun with arts and crafts lead by local community organizations Konsider Dis and EYL 365 Project. Enjoy story time with Dr. Kelsi Bracmort, author of Simone Visits the Museum and DC native, and get your book signed! 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, 1411 W Street SE. Free. http://www.nps.gov/frdo
Sunday, April 21st
Performance event
Follow the journey of a slave woman in Seoul to Soul as she navigates her travails through song, dance, drumming, and voice to today’s time, when she witnesses the success of her great-great-great-granddaughter as a prima donna on the grand opera stage. 6:00 p.m. on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, 2700 F Street NW. Tickets Free. http://www.Kennedy-Center.org
Monday, April 22nd
Musical event
Following a return to peace in Europe in 1918, the Montparnasse district of Paris became an epicenter of creativity for composers Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre—colloquially known as “Les Six.” This program features works for piano, as well as mixed winds and brass in a variety of chamber settings and celebrates the gradual and global return to societal normalcy in the months and years following the Great War. 6 p.m. on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Tickets Free. http://www.kennedy-center.org
Lecture event
Harriet Tubman, Union Spy: One significant aspect of Harriet Tubman’s life is less well-known than her role in the abolitionist movement: her Civil War military service as a spy for the Union Army in South Carolina. Historian Elizabeth Cobbs examines her activities behind enemy lines—including guiding an armed mission that liberated more than 700 slaves. 6:45 p.m. at S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW. Tickets $20-$30. https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/244443?utm_source=SIMag&utm_medium=SIMagListing&utm_campaign=APR19-SIMag-HarrietTubman&promo=241487
Tuesday, April 23rd
Musical event
Distinguished Belarusian-American violinist Yevgeny Kutik performs Russian miniature works drawn from a single suitcase of sheet music that his family brought to the United States when they emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1990. A one-time pupil of Roman Totenberg, Kutik has distinguished himself as an artist who combines consummate artistry with intellectual rigor and a commitment to representing stories of the displaced. His “evocative” recordings (New York Times) have garnered widespread critical recognition (including a spot on the Boston Globe’s “Best of 2016” list). 7:30 p.m at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre, 2700 F Street NW. Tickets $45. http://www.kennedy-center.org
Horticultural event
Discovery Theater Presents Beautiful Biomes: Home sweet biome? A biome is a unique environment that nurtures plants and creatures suited for that special place and climate, such as tundra, desert, rainforest, grassland and ocean. Celebrate Earth Month and step into the Haupt Garden with horticulturists from Smithsonian Gardens and discover how all living things—including the earth itself—are connected by adaptation to the beautiful biomes we call home. Ages 5-10. 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. at Smithsonian’s Haupt Garden, 1050 Independence Ave SW. Tickets $3-9. https://discoverytheater.org/shows/2019/apr/beautiful-biomes.shtm?utm_source=SIMag&utm_medium=SIMagListing&utm_campaign=APR19-SIMag-DTBeautifulBiomes&promo=241489
Author event
Writer Geraldine Brooks on Little Women at 150: Author Geraldine Brooks examines the enduring appeal of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel and its roots in the author’s life. Brooks, who drew on the Civil War-era experiences of the family’s head, Bronson Alcott, in her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel March, explores how Alcott’s radical parents and their progressive intellectual milieu shaped the woman, and the writer, she became. 6:45 p.m. at S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr SW. Tickets $20-$30. https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/writer-geraldine-brooks-on-little-women-at-150?utm_source=SIMag&utm_medium=SIMagListing&utm_campaign=APR19-SIMag-LittleWomen&promo=241487
