Seven Deadly Sins

Kurt Weill’s “Seven Deadly Sins” is performed by Washington, DC’s own PostClassical Ensemble at the National Gallery of Art, as part of “The Anxious Ear” program.

PostClassical Ensemble performs Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins, the tale of a young woman named Anna, sent on a seven-year journey to help her family raise enough money to build a house. Stopping in seven cities throughout the United States, she encounters a struggle with each of the deadly sins, preventing her from accomplishing her goal.

Under the leadership of Spanish Music Director Ángel Gil-Ordóñez, and with an ensemble of the most distinguished musicians in the area, PostClassical Ensemble takes the listener on a musical journey, featuring soprano Melissa Wimbish as Anna. The program also includes Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon.

This event will be part of a series of performances for the program The Anxious Ear, with music spanning from 1930s Germany to the present-day United States. The Anxious Ear is planned alongside The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy, an exhibition that explores how German expressionists sought to interpret the dramatic changes in the world of their time (1900–1920), with later artists inviting us to compare social, political, and cultural transformations taking place in our own societies today.

PostClassical Ensemble

Founded in 2003 by Angel Gil-Ordóñez and music historian Joseph Horowitz, PostClassical Ensemble has been a pioneer in transforming the concert experience through innovative programming and with collaborations across artistic mediums.

Their humanities-infused programming tells stories, exploring music in its cultural and historical context, and often integrating theater, dance, film, and visual art, as well as folk, indigenous, and popular music and instruments.