AMERICA!
The nation’s 250th anniversary told through the sounds and stories of composers who made their home in America.
friday, September 18, 2026
6:30 pm — 9:00 pm
Doors & Bar Cart: 6:30 PM
Performance: 7:00 PM — 8:45 PM (with intermission)
Dupont underground
19 Dupont Circle Northwest
Washington, DC, 20036
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Friday, September 18, 2026
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Dupont Underground
Doors & Bar Cart Open at 6:30 PM Performance: 7:00 PM – 8:45 PM (with intermission)
Counterpoint opens Season 3 with AMERICA!, a bold 250th-anniversary program exploring migration, memory, resistance, and reinvention through the music of composers who came to America.
Featuring Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Schoenberg, Tan Dun, and Lera Auerbach, the program brings together composers whose lives and imaginations moved across borders — carrying with them folk traditions, political histories, private memories, and new artistic identities. Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances transforms collected Transylvanian melodies into vivid chamber music; Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon channels Byron’s text into a blistering protest against tyranny; Tan Dun’s Eight Memories in Watercolor evokes childhood, homesickness, and remembered song; and Auerbach’s Piano Trio No. 2 unfolds like a fractured mirror, balancing individuality and ensemble, harmony and conflict.
Event Details
Counterpoint opens Season 3 with AMERICA! The 250th-anniversary program explores migration, resistance and reinvention through the music of composers who came to America.
Composers Lera Auerbach, Bartók, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff and Tan Dun carried folk traditions, political histories and personal memories across borders as they forged new artistic identities. Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances transform collected Transylvanian melodies for ensembles; Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon channels Lord Byron’s text to protest tyranny; nostalgia pulsates through Tan Dun’s Eight Memories in Watercolor and Auerbach’s Piano Trio No. 2 unfolds like a fractured mirror, picking up the pieces between individuality and ensemble, harmony and conflict.
Official event art by David Plunkert.
This program is generously sponsored by Dr. Robert Misbin.
Program
Sergei Rachmaninoff — Prelude in B minor, Op. 32, No. 10
Béla Bartók — Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56
Arnold Schoenberg — Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, Op. 41
Tan Dun — Eight Memories in Watercolor, Op. 1
Lera Auerbach — Piano Trio No. 2, “Triptych - This Mirror Has Three Faces”
Featured Artists
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