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News Release

Last modified: Friday, December 15, 2006

IU Jacobs School leads Washington's musical life this weekend

Two world-class concerts will take place this evening (Dec. 15) in different venues in the nation's capital: the Kennedy Center's Hall of Nations and the Library of Congress. Both feature Indiana University Jacobs School of Music-related musicians.

With the sounds of the Saint Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2 brilliantly cascading from the Concert Hall stage in Washington's Kennedy Center, world-famous conductor Leonard Slatkin and Grammy-winning pianist André Watts will enjoy another milestone in their decades-long musical friendship: for the first time, they will perform together as faculty members of the IU Jacobs School. Their concert, with the National Symphony Orchestra, will also include the Ginastera Concerto for Strings and the Beethoven Fifth Symphony.

Down the Potomac, at the Library of Congress, a very different long-sold-out concert will be performed by alumnus violinist Joshua Bell and alumnus and emeritus faculty pianist Jeremy Denk, along with cellist Steven Isserlis and violist Paul Neubauer.

Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was recently named the Arthur R. Metz Foundation Conductor at the Jacobs School. In a recent interview, he mentioned how happy he was to have joined the Jacobs School and how special the environment was for the study of music: "For the last two summers, I came [to IU] for the Summer Music Festival. I saw an intensity and commitment to music that you don't see much," he said. "Indiana University is truly focused on the young people, and I saw a real seriousness of purpose to grow in an intense musical environment. The young people there clearly know they are there for the purpose of learning."

Go to the concert page for the National Symphony Orchestra: https://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showEvent&event=NHCSF.

Go to Joshua Bell's Web site and read about his concerts: https://www.joshuabell.com/.

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