African American artist Robert Seldon Duncanson (1821–1872) was widely recognized during his lifetime for pastoral landscapes of American, Canadian, and European scenery. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to focus on a small group of still-life paintings (fewer than a dozen are known) that Duncanson produced during the late 1840s. Spare, elegant, and meticulously painted, these works reflect the tradition of American still-life painting initiated by Charles Willson Peale and his gifted children—particularly Raphaelle and Rembrandt Peale. Still-life paintings by Duncanson are extremely rare and highly coveted. Signed and dated 1848, Still Life with Fruit and Nuts is a particularly fine example and the first work by Duncanson to enter the Gallery’s collection. Classically composed with fruit arranged in a tabletop pyramid, the painting includes remarkable passages juxtaposing the smooth surfaces of beautifully rendered apples with the textured shells of scattered nuts.

Self-taught and living in Cincinnati when he created his still-life paintings, Duncanson exhibited several of these works at the annual Michigan State Fair. During one such exhibition, a critic for the Detroit Free Press wrote, “the paintings of fruit, etc. by Duncanson are beautiful, and as they deserve, have elicited universal admiration.” The artist’s turn from still-life subjects to landscapes conveying religious and moral messages may have been inspired by the exhibition in Cincinnati of Thomas Cole’s celebrated series The Voyage of Life. Cole’s allegorical paintings were purchased by a private collector in Cincinnati and remained in that city until acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1971. Exposure to Cole’s paintings marked a turning point in Duncanson’s career. Soon he began creating landscapes that incorporated signature elements from Cole and often carried moral messages.

Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Duncanson traveled to Canada, where he remained until departing for Europe in 1865. Often described as the first African American artist to achieve an international reputation, Duncanson enjoyed considerable success exhibiting his landscapes abroad. His achievement as a still-life painter has only recently become apparent. The exceptional quality of Still Life with Fruit and Nuts suggests that much remains to be learned about this little-known aspect of his career.

Thanks to the generosity of Ann and Mark Kington/The Kington Foundation and the Avalon Fund, Duncanson’s masterful still-life painting hangs in the American galleries not far from Cole’s Voyage of Life.

with Itamar Golan at the Music Center at Strathmore on March 16

Washington, D.C. –Russian violinist Vadim Repin, who consistently receives high critical praise for his live and recorded performances, appears at the Music Center at Strathmore on March 16 for a recital of late 19^th and early 20th-century works. The Guardian has described “his big, open Russian tone” as “wonderfully authentic.” ‘The glamour and majesty of his playing leap out at you from every phrase.” Said a review of his CD of sonatas, “ There’s a superb grasp of Janáček’s rugged lyricism: the propulsive cells that make up much of the work’s musical argument are driven along with rhythmic energy that is combined with a magnificent sense of musical line . . . without ever resorting to exaggeration.”

Born in Siberia in 1971, Repin started to play violin when he was five. At 11 he won the gold medal in all age categories in the Wienawski Competition and gave his recital debuts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He made his debuts in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki at age 14 and debuted a year later in Carnegie Hall. Two years later, at age 16, Repin became the youngest winner of the Reine Elisabeth Concours, considered to be the world’s most prestigious and demanding violin competition.

Since then he has performed with world’s greatest orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony and St. Petersburg Philharmonic, working with leading conductors such as Ashkenazy, Boulez, Chailly, Dohnanyi, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Gergiev, Jansons, Jurowski, Neeme and Paavo Järvi, Levine, Masur, Mehta, Muti, Nagano, Ozawa, Rattle, Temirkanov and numerous others.

Vadim Repin has been a frequent guest at festivals such as the BBC Proms, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Gstaad and Verbier. He regularly collaborates with Nikolai Lugansky and Itamar Golan in recital. Other chamber music partners include Martha Argerich, Evgeny Kissin and Mischa Maisky.

Recent highlights have included tours with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev; collaborations with Christian Thielemann in Tokyo, with Riccardo Muti in New York and with Riccardo Chailly in Leipzig; a tour of Australia with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski, and unanimously acclaimed premières in London, Philadelphia and at New York’s Carnegie Hall of a violin concerto written for him by James MacMillan. Other appearances during the last season included concerts in Rome with Temirkanov, in Israel with Kurt Masur, a tour of China and three concerts to open the new Esterházy Palace Festival in Austria.

Vadim Repin’s many CDs include prize-winning recordings of the great Russian violin concerti by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky on Warner Classics. His first recording for Deutsche Grammophon featured the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti, coupled with Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with Martha Argerich; the second, the Brahms Violin Concerto and the Brahms Double Concerto (with cellist Truls Mørk) with the Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig and Riccardo Chailly. His recording of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov trios with Mischa Maisky and Lang Lang received the Echo Classic Award.

In February 2010 he was awarded the Victoire d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious musical award for a lifetime’s dedication to music, and in December 2010 he became Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

Repin plays on the 1743 Bonjour violin by Guarneri del Gesù.

Itamar Golan was born in Vilnius but emigrated to Israel when he was one. He studied piano with Lara Vodovoz and Emmanuel Krazovsky and gave his first recital at the age of seven.

A scholarship awarded by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation enabled him to continue his education in the United States at the New England Conservatory from 1985-89.

He is in high demand as a chamber musician, performing with Maxim Vengerov, Barbara Hendricks, Shlomo Mintz, Mischa Maisky, Matt Haimovitz, Tabea Zimmermann and Ida Haendel, among others. He is regularly invited to perform at the world’s great concert halls and festivals, including those at Ravenna, Chicago, Tanglewood, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Verbier, and Lucerne. He also plays as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic under conductor Zubin Mehta.

Golan taught at the Manhattan School of Music from 1991 to 1994. He is a professor of chamber music at the Paris Conservatoire.

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Twyla Tharp: All American

XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition,

to Perform With National Philharmonic

photo credit Vadim Shults

 Pianist Daniil Trifonov performs Tchaikovsky’s majestic Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor with the National Philharmonic, led by Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski, on February 4, 2012, at 8 pm and on February 5, 2012, at 3 pm at the Music Center at Strathmore. Also on the all Tchaikovsky program are the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, the

Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy and the 1812 Overture.

The Tchaikovsky Competition triumph is the crowning achievement of a series of awards garnered by Trifonov, who in May won First Prize and Gold Medal at the 13^th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv and in 2010 won third prize in the 16th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Held every four years in Moscow, the Tchaikovsky Competition includes the disciplines of piano, violin, cello and voice. In past years, the piano category has been won by such legends as Van Cliburn and Vladimir Ashkenazy. In Moscow in June, the International Tchaikovsky Competition awarded pianist Trifonov First Prize, a Gold Medal, the special prize for Best Performance of a Mozart Concerto and the Audience Choice Award. On the final day of the competition, he was selected as the Grand Prize winner.

Born on March 5, 1991 in Nizhny Novgorod, Trifonov is a graduate of the Gnesin School of Music in Moscow, where he studied with Tatiana Zelikman. Since 2009, he has been studying with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 2008, he won first prize in the San Marino International Piano Competition and fifth prize in the International Scriabin Competition in Moscow.

The concert begins with Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise, an energetic dance from the composer’s opera Eugene Onegin. Following, Trifonov will take the stage to perform Tchaikovsky’s virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 1, one of the composer’s most popular works. The program also includes Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy. The composer briefly considered composing an opera based on Romeo and Juliet, but instead, in 1880, completed it as an overture-fantasy, in which some of the themes represent specific character and plot developments of Shakespeare’s iconic play. Last on the program is the 1812 Overture. Commissioned to compose the festive Overture to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Czar Alexander II’s ascension to the throne, Tchaikovsky commemorated the clash between French and Russian military forces using folk songs, hymns and the national anthems of their countries. The overture is traditionally performed at July 4th celebrations.

Maestro Gajewski is widely credited with building the National Philharmonic to its present status as one of the most respected ensembles of its kind in the region. The Washington Post recognizes him as an “immensely talented and insightful conductor,” whose “standards, taste and sensitivity are impeccable.” In addition to his appearances with the National Philharmonic, Maestro Gajewski is much in demand as a guest conductor. In recent years, he has appeared with most of the major orchestras in his native Poland, as well as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in England, the Karlovy Vary Symphony in the Czech Republic and numerous orchestras in the United States.

Gajewski attended Carleton College and the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he earned a B.M. and M.M. in Orchestral Conducting. Upon completing his formal education, he continued refining his conducting skills at the 1983 Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, where he was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship. His teachers there included Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Andre Previn, Gunther Schuller, Gustav Meier and Maurice Abravanel.

Gajewski is also a winner of many prizes and awards, among them a prize at New York’s prestigious Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition and, in 2006, Montgomery County’s Comcast Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Achievement Award.

The National Philharmonic is known for performances that are “powerful,” impeccable” and “thrilling” (The Washington Post). The National Philharmonic boasts a long-standing tradition of reasonably priced tickets and free admission to all young people age 7-17, assuring its place as an accessible and enriching component in Montgomery County and the greater Washington, DC area. As the Music Center at Strathmore’s ensemble-in-residence, the National Philharmonic showcases world-renowned guest artists in time-honored symphonic masterpieces conducted by Maestro Gajewski and monumental choral masterworks under National Philharmonic Chorale Artistic Director Stan Engebretson.

The National Philharmonic also offers exceptional and unique education programs, such as the Summer Strings and Choral Institutes. Students accepted into the Summer String Institutes study privately with National Philharmonic musicians, participate in coached chamber music and play in an orchestra conducted by Maestro Gajewski.

Tickets for the All Tchaikovsky concerts on February 4, 2012 at 8pm and on February 5, 2012 at 3 pm at the Music Center at Strathmore are now available as part of National Philharmonic’s 2011-2012 subscription season. To purchase, please visit nationalphilharmonic.org or call the Strathmore ticket office at (301) 581-5100. Kids 7-17 are FREE through the ALL KIDS, ALL FREE, ALL THE TIME program (sponsored by The Gazette). ALL KIDS tickets must be purchased in person or by phone. In addition, parking is free. Attached is a photo of pianist Daniil Trifonov (photo credit Vadim Shults).

William Shakespeare’s  The Two Gentlemen of Verona

directed by PJ Paparelli
Jan 17 2012—Mar 04 2012

Lansburgh Theatre

Valentine and Proteus, two gentlemen of Verona, are close friends. Valentine, seeking to be “tutor’d in the world,” goes with his servant Speed to Milan. Proteus, who is in love with Julia (as she is with him), is also ordered by his father to leave for Milan with his servant Launce and Launce’s dog, Crab. As soon as Proteus and Julia part, she disguises herself as a boy and hurries after him. In Milan, Valentine falls in love with the Duke’s daughter, Silvia. When Proteus arrives they tell him that because the Duke prefers the wealthier Turio, they plan to elope.

Proteus himself becomes infatuated with Silvia and, in an ungentlemanly fashion, informs the Duke of the elopement. The Duke finds a rope ladder under Valentine’s cloak and banishes him from Milan where Valentine then becomes the leader of a highly selective band of outlaws. Julia, still disguised as a boy, hears Turio’s musicians serenading Silvia. Proteus, too, is listening and after Turio has gone, he proclaims his love, which Silvia scorns. Julia, recognizing his voice as he attempts to woo Silvia, remains steadfast in her love for him. Proteus takes the disguised Julia (“Sebastian”) as his page and sends her as his messenger to Silvia, who continues to reject him for the absent Valentine, whom she decides to follow into banishment.

The Duke pursues his escaping daughter and is captured by the outlaws. While Silvia is rescued by Proteus, who attempts to force his love upon her, the watching Valentine attacks his friend for his treachery, then becomes very magnanimous by giving Silvia to him. Julia/Sebastian, swooning, reveals herself; the outlaws bring in the Duke who pardons them. Julia and Proteus are reunited as are Valentine and Silvia. Both couples are set to wed.

Washington, D.C. —The Shakespeare Theatre Company is pleased to announce that Academy Honorary Award® winner James Earl Jones will join Artistic Director Michael Kahn for the third installment of the Classic Conversations series to be held at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F St. NW) on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 8 p.m. Classic Conversations with Michael Kahn is a series of discussions with classically-trained actors presented as part of the 25th Anniversary Season.

Audiences are invited to join Kahn for an evening of in-depth discussions on classical theatre and the craft of acting. Kahn, known not only for his rigorous and ingenious presentation of classical works but also for his signature charm and wit, welcomes James Earl Jones to STC for a chance to analyze and discuss the importance of classical theatre in today’s society. This one night only event will provide patrons with a look into some of the great minds of classical theatre.

Classic Conversations with Michael Kahn has provided the audience an exclusive experience with STC’s Artistic Director. Kahn’s previous guests in the series include Kevin Kline and Patrick Stewart; both guests have captivated the audience through their stories, covering all aspects of their careers. “The Shakespeare Theatre Company is honored to host such esteemed actors and to hear their thoughts on classical theatre. It is a tremendous opportunity for our patrons and I have a great time as well,” says Kahn.

Tickets for this event start at $35. To reserve tickets or for more information, please call the box office at 202.547.1122, or go online to ShakespeareTheatre.org.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Michael Kahn recently directed The Heir Apparent, kicking off his 25th year as STC’s Artistic Director. Kahn has directed a wide variety of Shakespearean and classical works for STC, including Old Times, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Liar, Richard II, The Alchemist, Design for Living and The Way of the World. Having brought works of international significance like The Great Game: Afghanistan and Black Watch to the theatre last season, Kahn continues to demonstrate the versatility and relevance of STC’s theatre programming with this season’s productions. In 1991, he created the Free For All, which brings an STC production to audiences completely free of charge every year. The Free For All has reached more than 600,000 people to date. In addition to leading STC, he is also the founder of the Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University and the former Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division at Juilliard. Since the 1960s, Kahn’s work has been seen by audiences across the country and the world: in New York City, both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, as well as at both the American Shakespeare Theatre and the McCarter Theatre where he served as Artistic Director concurrently. In 2003, STC performed his production of The Oedipus Plays at the Athens Festival in Greece, where it received standing ovations and critical acclaim. In the summer of 2006, the Company took Kahn’s production of Love’s Labor’s Lost to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Complete Works Festival” in Stratford-upon-Avon.

James Earl Jones may be best known for his distinct voice. He was the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King, and he can be heard on countless Verizon commercials and on CNN. His stage credits include performances in Henry V, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, The Great White Hope, Fences, The Blood Knot, Boseman and Lena, Master Harold…and the Boys, On Golden Pond, Thurgood, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Driving Miss Daisy and many others. His film credits include performances in Dr. Strangelove, The Man, Claudine, The River Niger, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, Matewan, Field of Dreams, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Cry, The Beloved Country and numerous others. His awards include two Tonys, four Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Cable ACEs, two OBIEs, five Drama Desks and a Grammy. He was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the John F. Kennedy Center Honor in 2002 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.

Nancy Graves, Agualine, 1980, Collection of Robert and Jane Meyerhoff

Throughout her career, Nancy Graves mined the world of natural science for her imagery, from meticulously constructed camels to detailed cartographic studies. Her dual interest in science and art started with childhood visits to the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where her father worked and which housed a combined collection of art and natural history. In the late 1970s, Graves became interested in archaeology. She was awarded a residency at the American Academy in Rome in 1979 and used the opportunity to tour ancient sites throughout the Mediterranean. The excavations she visited illustrated for Graves how cultures become layered over time, each new civilization consuming the previous one. The complex layering and fragmenting of color, form, line, and technique in Agualine, painted in 1980 once she had returned to New York, speak to the palimpsest of history.

Agualine builds on a lexicon of images that Graves developed through the 1970s but pushes those literal references to the very edge of abstraction. Compositionally, Agualine is reminiscent of her painting Scaux, 1977, and her print Paleolinea, 1982, but begun in 1979, two works that reproduce the linear patterns from an Upper Paleolithic cave drawing in Altamira, Spain. In Agualine, the brown and black lines dancing across the canvas borrow from the same source but lack the fidelity of transcription.The band of thickly applied orange brushstrokes across the lower right corner of the canvas recalls a type of carved bone or horn found at Upper Paleolithic sites, although again it is less faithfully rendered in Agualine than in Scaux or Paleolinea. Agualine is also distinct from the gray Scaux in its high-keyed palette, signaling the brightly colored patinas Graves would use in her sculpture of the 1980s, including the National Gallery’s Spinner, 1985, gift of Lila Acheson Wallace. Despite these overt references to caves, the title Agualine has a distinctly nautical sound. A compound of the words “agua” (Spanish for water) and “line,” this invented term may best be described as a poetic abstraction that calls to mind Roman aqueducts or perhaps the frenetic movement of underwater life. The fluidity of the paint handling and the variety of marks suggest the tracks of sea creatures moving across the ocean floor and recall her bathymetric paintings of the early 1970s. Agualine, with its gestural exuberance, loud color, and dispersed composition, can be seen as a contemporary successor to the National Gallery’s great painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle), 1913, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. Agualine was generously donated by Robert E. Meyerhoff. It is the first painting by Graves to enter the collection and joins five sculptures, eleven drawings, and one print by the artist.

Nancy Graves, American, 1940–1995, Agualine, 1980, oil on canvas, overall: 111.8 x 167.6 cm (44 x 66 in.), Collection of Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, 2010.14.1

Saxophone Colossus Sonny Rollins

Washington, D.C.­–

Variously called a “saxophone god,” “colossus” and “the greatest living improviser in jazz” by the New York Times, Sonny Rollins is still going strong as he enters his eighties. Rollins, who was named both Musician of the Year and Best Tenor Saxophonist at the 2011 Jazz Journalist’s Associations Awards, returns to Washington on October 10 to perform live on stage at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. President Obama honored Rollins with a 2010 National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal.

            Said New York Times critic Ben Ratcliff, “Concerts by the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins are to be experienced the way surfers experience the beach: they wait around for the tide to gather force, and at a certain moment the watery muscle hurtles them along,” adding “Mr. Rollins is a powerful, grand-scale improviser. Almost every modern jazz musician is fascinated by Sonny Rollins.” As though in confirmation, Rollins has said,” “I am sort of a primitive, I never play the same thing the same way twice. This is the essence of jazz. Improvisation is the top level of jazz expression.” Rollins has the rare ability to be “aggressive and tender at the same time. In Sonny’s improvisations, we hear his enormous ambitions and risk-taking, but we also hear heart and storytelling,” said Marc Myers on JazzWax.com.

            A prolific peripatetic performer, Rollins will release Road Shows, Vol. 2 in early September 2011. In addition to material recorded in Japan during an October 2010 tour, the new CD will contain several tracks from Sonny’s September 2010 80th birthday concert in New York, including the historic and electrifying encounter with Ornette Coleman. Rollins released Road Shows, Vol. 1 in late 2008; the inaugural release in a planned series of live Sonny Rollins recordings from the last 30-plus years. In August 2009, the album was named Jazz Album of the Year in DownBeat’s Critics Poll, and Rollins was named Jazz Artist of the Year.

Born in Harlem in 1930, Rollins grew up near the famous Savoy Ballroom and Apollo Theater and idolized Coleman Hawkins. Rollins worked and recorded with his musical mentor and guru Miles Davis, as well as Babs Gonzalez and Bud Powell, before he was 20. Even at that time, according to Miles Davis, Rollins was “a legend…almost a god to a lot of younger musicians. He was an aggressive, innovative player who always had fresh musical ideas.”

In 1955, after a hiatus in Chicago, Rollins came back as a member of the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet, where he became known for improvising on simple tunes such as ballads and calypsos, as well as his often humorous style of melodic invention. In 1956, Rollins began to make a series of landmark recordings under his own name, including Valse Hot, St. Thomas, and Blue 7. His 1957 album Way Out West was the first to use a trio of saxophone, bass and drums, a format known as “stroll.” Rollins is credited with having popularized this style, where a piano-less trio puts the saxophone in the driver’s seat.

Highly self-critical, Rollins withdrew from the stage again in order to perfect his art between 1959 and 1961 and spent hours practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge on the lower East Side of Manhattan. Upon his return to the musical scene in 1962, his first recording was aptly called The Bridge. By then, his sets had adopted their current form of long, complex expressions based on Rollins’ encyclopedic knowledge of popular songs and other melodies. Rollins’ improvisations, says Ben Ratcliff are “brilliant” and full of “slangy humor and quotations…genuine American rhetoric, delirious and ecstatic.” “Jazz is probably the most demanding and the greatest art form in the world,” says Rollins. “It’s as if we were painting before the public, and the following morning we cannot go back and correct that blue color or change that red. We have to have the blues and reds very well placed before going out to play.”

Rollins withdrew again from the stage in 1966, returning in 1972, when he released Next Album, which was followed by another two dozen albums with a variety of ensembles. Rollins won his first Grammy for This Is What I Do in the year 2000, and his second for the 2004 Without a Song (the 9/11 Concert). He won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004 and was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 2006. He was awarded a Polar Music Prize in 2007.

www.wpas.org

Elaine Kudo

The Washington Ballet (TWB)

announces the appointment of Elaine Kudo as Ballet Master and Monique Meunier as Ballet Master of The Washington Ballet Trainee Program.

A former American Ballet Theatre soloist and world-renowned Twyla Tharp repetituer, Ms. Kudo officially joins the company on September 12.

A former New York City Ballet principal dancer, Ms. Meunier will replace Carlos Valcárcel as Ballet Master of TWB’s highly acclaimed training program.

“These appointments are great moves for The Washington Ballet’s artistic force,” said TWB Artistic Director Septime Webre. “Both Elaine and Monique come with amazing sets of experiences, and are brilliant teachers, coaches and mentors. Monique’s impact has already been great on our Company artists, and now our Trainees will also benefit from her expertise, and our whole institution is eager to get to work with Elaine in our studios. It’s a wonderful moment for The Washington Ballet.”

Monique Meunier

“I am honored to join the artistic staff of The Washington Ballet,” said Ms. Kudo, “With my past history as Ballet Mistress for Septime at The American Repertory Ballet and in working with the company in the past, I know the tremendous artistry and talent of these dancers, and look forward to deepening my relationship with them in the coming seasons.”

“I am looking forward to working with The Washington Ballet Trainee Program,” said Ms. Meunier, “and becoming an integral part of the school as well as the Company.”

Ms. Kudo was born in Koizumi, Japan and began ballet training at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School. She went on to study at the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre School. Ms. Kudo joined ABT in 1975 and was appointed a Soloist in December 1981. Her repertory with ABT included the Aya in La Bayadére, the Sweetheart in Billy the Kid, A Masked Lady in Mikhail Baryshnikov’s production of the full-length Cinderella, the Bride in Les Noces, leading roles in Aires, Duets, Fancy Free, Great Galloping Gottschalk, Push Comes to Shove, Sinatra Suite, and Voluntaries, and featured roles in Estuary, Interludes, N. Y. Export: Op. Jazz, and The Little Ballet. Since her retirement from ABT in 1989, Ms. Kudo has worked as Ballet Mistress for American Ballet Theatre, Twyla Tharp, The Jersey Ballet Company and The American Repertory Ballet Co. Considered one of the leading repetituer’s for Twyla Tharp’s works, she regularly stages works throughout the United States and Europe.

Ms. Meunier was born in Hollywood, CA. At the age of 15, she received a full scholarship to attend the School of American Ballet, and one year later, was asked to join the New York City Ballet. In 1997, she was promoted to soloist and reached the rank of principal dancer in 1998. There she performed numerous roles by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and William Forsythe as well as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. In 2002, Ms. Meunier joined American Ballet Theatre where she added the classics and works by Anthony Tudor and Jiri Kylian to her repertoire. In 2007, she joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet under the direction of Dwight Rhoden. Ms. Meunier has staged George Balanchine ballets for the Balanchine Trust and served as rehearsal director for Karole Armitage in 2009. She has also ventured into choreography and has premiered four works in 2009-2010 for Lake Placid and The Columbia Collaborative.

Ms. Kudo and Ms. Meunier join The Washington Ballet’s Artistic team that includes Artistic Director Septime Webre and Associate Artistic Director David Palmer.

Paine overseeing the installation of Graft.Photo by Rob Shelley

 At 45 feet high by 45 feet wide, Graft (2008–2009) by American sculptor Roxy Paine stands out among the trees in the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Art, one-half mile from the United States Capitol on the National Mall. The Gallery commissioned Paine to make a “Dendroid,” as the artist calls his series of treelike sculptures, for the Sculpture Garden. The newly installed work is the first by Paine to enter the Gallery’s collection, as well as the first contemporary sculpture to be installed in the Sculpture Garden in the 10 years since it opened.

Made from more than 8,000 components, the stainless steel structure—which weighs approximately 16,000 pounds—was installed the week of October 26–30 by Paine and his crew. The 43-year-old artist has shown his other Dendroids on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), in the Olympic Sculpture Park (Seattle), and outside the Museum of Modern Art (Fort Worth, Texas), among other locations.

“Paine’s Graft is uniquely appropriate for the Sculpture Garden, which balances art and nature within the urban yet verdant setting of the nation’s capital,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “The Gallery is extremely grateful for the generosity of philanthropists Victoria Sant, president of the Gallery, and her husband, Roger Sant, who made this important addition to the collection of contemporary sculpture possible.”

Graft presents two fictive but distinct species of trees—one gnarled, twisting, and irregular, the other smooth, elegant, and rhythmic—joined to the same trunk. Among its rich associations, this sculpture evokes the persistent human desire to alter and recombine elements of nature, as well as the ever-present tension between order and chaos.

Paine’s first Dendroid, Impostor (1999), a 27-foot-tall sculpture, stands in a forest clearing at the Wanås Foundation in Knislinge, Sweden. Paine has since made 16 Dendroids, each unique and organized according to its own system. The works are installed in sylvan settings, urban environments, and landscaped urban parks. Trees have long been regarded a metaphor for human existence, and their forms evoke for Paine a range of natural and man-made systems from neurons to river networks, from taxonomic diagrams to genealogical charts.

Paine divides his sculptural practice along three visually distinct tracks: in addition to his Dendroids, he makes meticulous representations of plants and fungi modeled in polymer, which he calls Replicants. He also creates automated art-making machines that produce abstract paintings, sculptures, and drawings. These seemingly disparate forms all share a common interest in the distinction between reality and artifice, the natural and the man-made environment, raising questions about the limits of human control.

About the Artist
Roxy Paine was born in 1966 in New York and studied at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico and the Pratt Institute in New York. Since 1990 his work has been internationally exhibited and is included in major collections such as De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, the Netherlands; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In addition to those mentioned, Paine’s Dendroids can be found at various museums and foundations, including Montenmedio Arte Contemporaneo NMAC, Cadiz, Spain, and the St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. Roxy Paine lives and works in Brooklyn and Treadwell, New York.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art.