The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry of the

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,916th Concert

Empire Brass

Rolf Smedvig and Marc Brian Reese, trumpet; Greg Miller, French horn,

Alexei Doohovskoy, trombone; Kenneth Amis, tuba

featuring

Elisabeth von Trapp, soprano

with

Douglas Major, pianist; Stephen Ackert, organist

Holiday Concert: “The Sound of Christmas”

December 16, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
The Musicians

EMPIRE BRASS

The first brass ensemble to win the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music

Award, Empire Brass is often hailed as North America’s finest brass quintet. 

Renowned for its virtuosity and diverse repertoire, the ensemble has toured

Asia more than a dozen times and performs regularly in Europe. It has 

played to standing-room-only crowds in the former Soviet Union, where its

concerts were televised. Major symphony orchestras that have collaborated 

with Empire Brass include those of Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit,

and Toronto, as well as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia 

Orchestra, and Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchester. Regularly featured in major

music festivals, including Caramoor, Chautauqua, Ravinia, Saratoga, and

Tanglewood, the quintet performs more than 100 concerts a year. Its five

member musicians have all held leading positions with major American

orchestras.

Empire Brass has been featured on cbs' Good Morning America,

nbc’s Today Show and Sunday Today, and pbs’ Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

The ensemble is a regular guest on commercial and public radio networks nationwide, performing on programs such as Saint Paul Sunday

Morning, Traditions, and npr's Performance Today. As the faculty quintetin-residence at Boston University, it has conducted the Empire Brass

Seminar at the Tanglewood Institute for over twenty years. Visiting

consultants in brass at London’s Royal Academy of Music since 1991,

the members ofthe quintet also lead an annual series of college clinics

cosponsored by the Selmer Company, the maker oftheir instruments.

A series ofbest-selling Empire Brass CDs on the Telarc label offers

music that spans five hundred years from a dozen different countries.

Their latest release is King’s Court and Celtic Fair, a collection ofworks that

explores the courtly and vernacular musical worlds of old Europe in new 

arrangements featuring the use of bagpipes and electronic percussion.

ELISABETH VON TRAPP

Born and raised in Vermont, Elisabeth von Trapp is the granddaughter of

Georg Johannes Ritter von Trapp and his second wife, Maria, whose story

inspired The Sound ofMusic. Elisabeth’s father, guitarist and singer Werner 

von Trapp, carried on the legacy ofthe internationally renowned Trapp

Family Singers. Elisabeth has sung professionally since childhood, joining 

her siblings to perform at weddings, gospel meetings, and town halls

throughout New England. Building on her family’s passion for music, von

Trapp has created her own artistic style, with concert repertoire ranging

from songs by the twelfth-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen to arias by

Bach and Lieder by Mozart, and from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Favorite

Things and Edelweiss to gospel tunes, pop classics, and her own compositions.

With many concerts in Austria, Russia, and the United States to her

credit, von Trapp has been featured on bbc Radio, cnn Spanish Radio,

Japanese National Radio, and National Public Radio. She has appeared on 

cbs’ Eye on People, abc’s Good Morning America, and bbc-tv.

In 2001 von Trapp was granted permission by Robert Frost’s publisher, 

Henry Holt and Company, to sing and record selections from the poet’s

oeuvre. Poetic License, released in June 2004, includes musical settings of

poems by Frost and Shakespeare in addition to Japanese haiku. Her 2005

release Love Never Ends/Sacred Sounds features her arrangements of hymns,

psalms, and chants with influences from jazz and gospel.

DOUGLAS MAJOR

Born in 1953 near Scranton, Pennsylvania, Douglas Major studied organ 

in Saint Louis under Ronald Arnatt and was appointed assistant organist

at the Washington National Cathedral in 1974. In 1988 he succeeded 

Richard Wayne Dirksen as organist and choirmaster at the cathedral, a

position he held until 2002. Major has toured throughout Europe, the 

Far East, and North America with Empire Brass and with the Orchestre

National de France under Lorin Maazel. As an organ recitalist, he has

played in Bermuda, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. In 2001

and 2004 he participated in the American Organists’ Festival in Kiev,

Ukraine, playing recitals to standing-room-only audiences.

3
Major’s solo recordings include eight compact discs of organ music,

recorded on the Washington National Cathedral’s historic Skinner organ.

With Empire Brass, he has recorded A Bach Festival for Angel/EMI. In addition to his demanding concert and recording schedule, Major composes

music for organ, synthesizer, choirs, and chamber ensembles, and serves as

music director of Saint Michael’s Church in Marblehead, Massachusetts. His

recent works include a suite for organ titled Cape Ann Portraits, inspired by

locations along the Massachusetts coastline. He serves on the advisory boards

oftwo venues that house historic American organs—Memorial Music Hall

in Methuen, Massachusetts, and the Macy’s Department Store (formerly

Wanamaker’s) in Philadelphia, home ofthe world’s largest pipe organ.

STEPHEN ACKERT

Now in his ninth year as head ofthe music department at the National Gallery

ofArt, Stephen Ackert studied the organ at Oberlin College; Northwestern 

University; the Hochschule fur Musik in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; and 

the University ofWisconsin in Madison, where he completed his doctoral

studies in 1979. A resident ofthe Washington area since 1979, he has performed at the Kennedy Center, the National Cathedral, and the National

Shrine ofthe Immaculate Conception. In 2008 he undertook his ninth recital

tour of historic concert halls and churches in Germany, and in 2010 and 2012

he played for national conventions ofthe American Liszt Society.

In addition to regular presentation of his lectures and preconcert talks

on the interrelationships between music and art at the National Gallery,

Ackert has lectured at the Amalfi Coast Music and Art Festival in Italy; the 

Austrian, German, and Italian embassies in Washington; the Kennedy

Center; and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

4

Carols for Audience, Brass, and Organ

GOD REST YE MERRY, GENTLEMEN

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay,

For Jesus Christ, our savior, was born upon this day,

To save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we were gone astray:

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,

O tidings of comfort and joy!

From God, our heav’nly father a blessed angel came,

And unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same,

How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name:

O tidings....

Now to the Lord sing praises, all ye within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace;

This holy tide of Christmas doth bring redeeming grace:

O tidings....

SILENT NIGHT

Stille Nacht, heilige nacht, alles schlaft; einsam wacht

Nur das traute, hochheilige Paar. Holder Knabe mit lockigem Haar,

Schlafin himmlischer Ruh', schlafin himmlischer Ruh’.

Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright

Round yon virgin mother and child.

Holy infant, so tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night; Son of God, love’s pure light

Radiant beams from thy holy face with the dawn ofredeeming grace.

Jesus, Lord at thy birth, Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
JOY TO THE WORLD

Joy to the world, the Lord is come.

Let earth receive her king.

Let ev’ry heart prepare him room,

And heav’n and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the savior reigns!

Let all their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains

Repeat the sounding joy.

He rules the world with truth and grace

And makes the nations prove

The glories ofhis righteousness

And wonders of his love.

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Concerts in December at the National Gallery of Art

Kenneth Slowik, fortepianist

with Catherine Manson, violist,

and Eric Hoeprich, clarinetist

“Music from the Age ofthe Fortepiano, 1700-1830”

Presented in honor of Masterpieces ofAmerican Furniture

from the Kaufman Collection, 1700-1830

December 19, 2012

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Jennifer Lane, soprano

Kenneth Slowik, fortepianist

“Music from the Age ofthe Fortepiano, 1700-1830”

Presented in honor of Masterpieces ofAmerican Furniture

from the Kaufman Collection, 1700-1830

December 23, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building Lecture Hall