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 ofthe 

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

cover: George Bellows, Society Ball [verso], c. 1907, charcoal and pastels on wove paper,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Eugene L. and Marie-Louise Garbaty Fund

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

Brazilian-American Music Festival

Made possible by generous support from 

The Embassy of Brazil

January 8,15, and 22, 2012

Sunday Evenings, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
2,866th Concert

January 8, 2012

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

Jean Louis Steuerman, pianist and guest conductor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Overture to The Marriage ofFigaro (1786)

Mozart

Piano Concerto no. 17 in G major, K. 453 (1784)

Allegro 

Andante

Allegro; presto

Franz von Suppe (1819-1895)

Overture to Banditenstreiche (The Jolly Robbers) (1867)

INTERMISSION

Mozart

Symphony no. j6 in C Major, K. 425 (“Linzer”) (1783)

Adagio; allegro spiritoso

Andante

Menuetto

Presto
The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ORCHESTRA

The National Gallery ofArt Orchestra was founded in 1943 and initially

consisted of approximately twenty-five players drawn from the National

Symphony Orchestra. Gradually growing in numbers, the Gallery orchestra

eventually reached the size and status of a large chamber orchestra. The

ensemble has undertaken the full range of chamber and symphonic repertoire and has frequently presented first performances ofworks by American

composers, most notably the 1953 premiere ofCharles Ives’ Symphony

no. 1 under the direction of Richard Bales; the 1990 premiere of Daniel

Pinkham’s Symphony no. 4 under George Manos; and the 2007 premiere

ofJohn Musto’s Later the Same Evening: An opera inspired byfive paintings of

Edward Hopper, under guest conductor Glen Cortese. Other guest conductors

who have appeared with the orchestra in recent years include Bjarte Engeset,

Vladimir Lande, George Mester, Otto-Werner Mueller, Jose Serebrier, and

Alexander Titov.

4

Born in Rio de Janeiro of Romanian parents, Jean Louis Steuerman began

his piano studies at age four and made his debut with the Brazilian Symphony

Orchestra ten years later. In Brazil he studied piano with Jacques Klein and

composition under Claudio Dantaro before becoming a scholarship student

at the Naples Conservatory. In 1972 Steuerman launched an international

career when he won second prize in the Bach Competition in Leipzig. He

has performed in England with the Halle, Liverpool Philharmonic, London

Symphony, and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Other European ensembles

with which he has performed include the Helsinki Philharmonic, Leipzig

Gewandhaus, Polish Chamber, and Stuttgart Chamber orchestras as well as

the Basel, Berlin, and Zurich Tonhalle symphony orchestras. He also toured

Switzerland with the European Commission Youth Orchestra as well as Italy

and Japan with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. He has been a featured

soloist and guest conductor with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, the English

Chamber Orchestra, and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. Highlights of

Steuerman’s recent concert activity include appearances with the Brevard 

Festival Orchestra, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Louisville Orchestra,

the Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira, and the Utah Symphony.

Renowned for his playing ofthe music ofJohann Sebastian Bach and

that oflate twentieth-century composers, Steuerman has recorded numerous

works by Bach for Philips; works by composers Girolamo Arrigo (b. 1930) and

Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) for Arion; and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony

no. 2 (“The Age ofAnxiety”) for Naxos. Jean Louis Steuerman appears at the

National Gallery by arrangement with MusicVine, www.musicvinearts.com.

JEAN LOUIS STEUERMAN

5
Program Notes

This evening’s concert marks the forty-sixth time that the National Gallery 

ofArt Orchestra has presented a special New Year concert. The orchestra’s

founder, Richard Bales, inaugurated the tradition on January 2,1966, taking

a cue from the famous New Year concerts at the Musikverien in Vienna,

Austria. This concert has come to be a beloved favorite in Washington, and

it is offered as a heartfelt wish, expressed in music, for a happy and prosperous New Year.

In recent years, the National Gallery music department has broadened

its musical celebration ofthe New Year concert to include the talents and

traditions of countries other than Austria. For its New Year concert in 2010,

the Gallery collaborated with Uruguayan-born composer and conductor Jose

Serebrier, and in 2011 with the Royal Norwegian Embassy and guest conductor

Bjarte Engeset. The Gallery is pleased to welcome Brazilian guest conductor

Jean Louis Steuerman for this New Year concert, which, along with the concerts on January 15 and 22, 2012, is made possible by generous assistance

from the Embassy of Brazil.

6

2,867th Concert

January 15, 2012

Americantiga

Ricardo Bernardes, musical director

With Rosana Orsini, soprano,

and the National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

Joaquina Lapinha: The First Brazilian Prima donna

Early Nineteenth-century Luso-Brazilian Dramatic Music

Performed without intermission

Antonio Leal Moreira (1758-1819)

Introdugao (Introduction) and Aria: Nao ha neste mundo

From the far<;a A Saloia Namorada (1793)

Ed. Ricardo Bernardes

Valentino Fioravanti (1764-1837)

Aria from the cantata L’lmene trionfante (1806)

Ed. Ricardo Bernardes

Moreira

Overture from II Natale augusto (1793)

Ed. Stanley M. Baker
Jose Maurlcio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830)

Aria from the cantata Triunfo da America (1809)

Ed. Sergio Dias

Nunes Garcia (1767-1830)

Overture in E-Jlat Major

Ed. Ricardo Bernardes

Bernardo de Souza Queiroz (1765-1837)

Recitative and Aria: Frenar vorrei le lagrime

From the opera Zaira (1809)

Garcia

Overture (“Lights and Thunderstorms”)

Recitative and Aria: Ninfas do Tejo ameno

From the cantata Ulisseia (1809)

Ed. Sergio Dias

8

The Musicians

AMERICANTIGA

Founded in 1995 by Ricardo Bernardes, the early music ensemble Americantiga specializes in interpretation of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century

music from Brazil, Italy, Portugal, and the Hispanic American countries.

Since releasing its first CD in 1999 (Musica Brasileira e Portuguesa do Seculo

xviii), the ensemble has performed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and at major 

venues in Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and the United States. This concert

marks the first opportunity for Washington audiences to hear the ensemble

since its 2008 Kennedy Center debut. Harpsichordist Ricardo Bernardes is

joined in this Americantiga concert by violinist Julianna Chitwood, violist

Carol Holmes, bassist Millie Martin, flutists Colin St. Martin and Thomas

MacCracken, clarinetist Richard Spece, bassoonist Anna Marsh, and horn

players Paul Hopkins and Michael Holmes.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART CHAMBER PLAYERS

A resident ensemble since 2007, the National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

interpret instrumental music written before 1750. The ensemble has presented 

concerts in honor ofseveral exhibitions at the Gallery, including Fabulous

Journeys and Faraway Places: Travels on Paper, 1450-1750, and Jan Lievens:

A Dutch Master Rediscovered. Members ofthe Chamber Players participating

in tonight’s concert are violinist and leader Risa Browder; violinists Ann C.

Loud, Caroline Levy, and Leslie Nero; and cellist John Moran.

RICARDO BERNARDES

Born in Curitiba, Brazil, and currently a resident of Lisbon, Portugal, musicologist and conductor Ricardo Bernardes studied at the Universidade Nova

in Lisbon and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University ofTexas at

Austin. In 2004, as conductor ofthe Chamber Orchestra of Sao Paulo,

Bernardes led the celebratory concerts ofthat city’s 450th anniversary. In 

2006 he conducted the inaugural concert ofthe Theresa Lozano Long

Institute for Latin American Studies at University of Texas at Austin. He has

9
conducted at the Basilica da Estrela in Lisbon, Portugal, as well as the Brazilian 

Embassy, the Kennedy Center, and the Organization ofAmerican States in

Washington, DC. As editor-in-chief, he has contributed to Musica no Brasil

nos Seculos xvm exix (Brazilian Music ofthe Eighteenth and Nineteenth

Centuries), released in 2001 by the Brazilian Ministry ofCulture, and Brazilian

Classical Music, a publication ofthe Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

ROSANA ORSINI

A specialist in Luso-Brazilian music ofthe eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Italian-Brazilian soprano Rosana Orsini earned praise from audiences and critics alike at the Compostela Organum Festival 2010 in Santiago

de Compostela, Spain, and the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, where

she sang a concert fully dedicated to the works of Padre Jose Mauricio

Nunes Garcia (1767-1830). She has sung the roles of Zerlina in Mozart’s

Don Giovanni, Despina in Costfan tutte, and Susanna in Le Nozze de Figaro,

as well as appearing as soprano soloist in productions of oratorios by Johann

Sebastian Bach, Handel, and Pergolesi. Her nineteenth-century repertoire

includes leading roles in Bizet’s Les Pecheurs de perles, Puccini’s Gianni

Schicchi, and Verdi’s Un Ballo in maschera. Recipient of a scholarship at 

the Royal Alex Templeton Academy of Music in London, a Vitae Foundation

grant from the Brazilian Government, and research grants from the Calouste 

Gulbenkian Foundation and the Foundation for Science and Technology in

Portugal, Orsini holds a master’s degree in music from the Manhattan School

of Music, a voice diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and

a PhD, issued jointly by the Sorbonne in Paris and Universidade Nova in

Lisbon. Her doctoral dissertation is a history of opera houses in Portuguese

America in the eighteenth century.

10

Program Notes

The first and most probably the only native singer from Portuguese America

who performed in European theaters in the eighteenth and early nineteenth

centuries, Joaquina Maria da Concei^ao Lapa (known on stage as Joaquina

Lapinha) achieved a significant reputation in her time. Despite the color of

her skin and her racial background—her mother, Maria da Lapa, was ofmixed 

black and white parentage—Joaquina was invited to sing on the important

stages of Lisbon, thanks to her exceptional singing talent and acting skill.

Carl Israel Ruders, a Swedish traveler who had an opportunity to hear her

between 1798 and 1802 in Lisbon, wrote: “The third actress is called Joaquina

Lapinha. She is a native of Brazil and the daughter of a half-caste woman; for

this reason she has a very dark skin color. Besides that, she has an imposing

figure, good voice, and a great deal of dramatic feeling.”

As a result of extensive research, Ricardo Bernardes and Rosana Orsini

have discovered and revived the repertory sung by Lapinha during her time

in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. Most ofthese arias by Brazilian and Portuguese

composers are being performed for the first time since Lapinha brought

them to the stage. Composers Antonio Leal Moreira and Valentino Fioravanti are known to have worked with her during their respective tenures as

directors ofthe Royal Theater of Sao Carlos in Lisbon. Along with many

other musicians and artists, Laphina returned to Brazil in 1807-1808, following the court ofJoao vi, who had fled the advance of Napoleon and

established his imperial capital in Rio de Janeiro. For the next thirteen years, 

Rio functioned as the capital ofthe Kingdom of Portugal, in what some

historians call a “metropolitan reversal”—a former colony exercising governance over a European empire. It is assumed that Lapinha performed the

leading role ofthe opera Zaira, written in 1809 by fellow Portuguese emigre

Bernardo de Souza Queiroz. A native Brazilian composer who wrote for the

royal court during that period of exile, Padre Jose Mauricio Nunes Garcia, 

also dedicated arias to the half-caste soprano, incorporating vocal challenges

designed to show offher impressive skills.

n
2,868th Concert

January 22, 2012

Brasil Guitar Duo

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

Zita

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

Gavotte and Variations

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)

Prelude and Fugue

Douglas Lora (b. 1978)

Waltz and Postlude

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

Prelude from Bachianas brasileiras no. 4

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

Egberto Gismonti (b. 1947)

7 Aneis

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

12

INTERMISSION

Edu Lobo (b. 1943)

Casa Forte/Zanzibar

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

Jacob do Bandolim (1918-1969)

Doce de Coco

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

Gismonti

Afala da Paixao

Forrobodo

Arranged for guitar duo by Joao Luiz

Marco Pereira (b. 1950)

Bate-Coxa
The Musicians

A winner ofthe 2006 Concert Artists Guild International Competitions,

Brasil Guitar Duo has been praised for its “maturity ofmusicianship and

technical virtuosity” (Classical Guitar). Equally at home with classical or

world music, the duo features a seamless blend oftraditional and Brazilian

influences. Its global touring schedule includes major concert series and

festivals in Austria, Bermuda, Brazil, Colombia, England, Germany, Panama,

Poland, and South Korea, as well as concerts in the United States at the

Chautauqua Festival and in Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, New York,

Saint Louis, Santa Barbara, and Tucson. A recent highlight for the ensemble

was “Cuba Meets Brazil: Latin American Synergy,” its collaboration with the

legendary clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera.

Eager advocates for both traditional and new concertos for two guitars and

orchestra, the duo recently premiered a new duo-concerto by Paulo Bellinati 

with the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo. Released in 2007, Brasil

Guitar Duo’s first CD, Bom Partido, prompted critic Steve Marsh to write: “The

maturity ofmusicianship and technical virtuosity displayed on this debut

recording by Joao Luiz and Douglas Lora is simply outstanding...The original

compositions by Douglas Lora comfortably stand alongside the ‘big names’ on

the rest ofthe program and are well crafted and very appealing new works”

(Classical Guitar). Since then, the duo has released two critically acclaimed

CDs: a two-disc set containing the complete works for two guitars by Mario

Castelnuovo-Tedesco; and a collaboration with flutist Marina Piccinini that

features all ofJ. S. Bach’s sonatas for flute and harpsichord, arranged by the

duo for flute and two guitars.

H

Duo members Joao Luiz and Douglas Lora met in Sao Paulo as teenage

guitar students and have been performing together for fifteen years, perfecting a sublime synchronicity and effortless performance style. Lora earned his

master ofmusic degree at the University of Miami as a student of Rene

Gonzalez, and Luiz is pursuing a master ofmusic degree at New York’s

Mannes College of Music, studying with Michael Newman. Striving to expand

the repertoire for two guitars, Lora contributes original compositions and

Luiz arranges both classical and Brazilian music. Appearing frequently in

non-traditional spaces, the duo brings a broad repertoire of classical guitar

duos and traditional music ofits native Brazil to a diverse audience. Brasil 

Guitar Duo appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Sciolino 

Artists Management, www.samnyc.us.

«5