Getting to Know Dumbarton Concerts
In this week’s “Getting to Know You” series, Alexi Caruso interviews Carter Sligh from Dumbarton Concerts to learn more about their upcoming events in the DC area.
Dumbarton Concerts’s website can be reached at https://www.dumbartonconcerts.org/
By: Alexi Caruso
We began the interview discussing what the future looks like for Dumbarton Concerts and their calendar, as well as their Inspired Child educational program.
Dumbarton Concerts has a really exciting season coming up! Can you tell us some details of the performances you have scheduled?
“We are a traditionally classical series, and over the last few years we have been branching out a bit; more so this year. I’m particularly excited about our second show, which is the Martha Redbone Roots Project. She’s an Afro-Indigenous artist based in New York City, but she’s originally from Kentucky, so she has that blues, Appalachian, folk sensibility, but also really gritty and urban and informed by soul and hip-hop. Also coming up we have several other jazz artists. DC has a really healthy, well-renowned jazz scene, so we’re really excited to be showcasing Marcus Johnson, who’s a local jazz luminary. He’s doing two shows in December, including jazz primarily from the Christmas season. At our core we’re a classical series and we always strive to present the finest of that, so the very same weekend as Martha Redbone we have Jeremy Denk who is a real star solo concert pianist. He’s doing a program of all female composers on Saturday, November 4th. We also have two international string quartets coming in 2024. We have Cuarteto Latino Americano from Mexico in January and then also (couldn’t understand the name) from France in March. We’re really grateful to LMP for being able to give us a platform and to get the word out as widely as possible about our wide range of offerings.”
If you could explain Dumbarton Concerts’ “Inspired Children” program in one word, what would it be and why?
“Access. That’s kind of at the core of everything we do. This series was founded in the 70s to bring chamber music into a city that didn’t have a chamber music scene at the time, and we’ve really carved out a niche in that world and in this city since then. We were real pioneers at the time, and to be able to give local music lovers in this city access to this music is in our DNA right from the beginning. The whole point of the program is to bring our music to classrooms in under-resourced neighborhoods in Washington DC. DC is a historically diverse city, and we want to bring our expertise, love, and access to local kids who deserve to have that kind of exposure. This is the ethos that keeps it going today.”
How are Dumbarton Concerts reaching their goals in music education?
“It’s actually very topical. Like I said, the concert series Inspired Child kind of grew out of the concert series, but in the last 30 years, it’s really become its own program and is very much freestanding. It has its own staff dedicated just to that roster of artists, and in recent years, we’ve had an effort within our organization to really relink those two programs and think about how these world class concerts we present can exist not just in the concert hall, but how can we bring them elsewhere? So we are starting a whole slate of education programming specifically related to the concert series in DC schools and with local students. So just two programs that I can name off the top of my head, and they’re actually related to artists that I’ve already mentioned. Martha Redbone is giving a school show for the elementary school just across the street from us in Georgetown. She’s doing a presentation for the whole school about indigenous call and response music. It’s a subject area that we would love for more elementary schoolers to be exposed to so she’s providing that program. We have a special grant for that, and then we also have another grant we’re working with. This is all with Mid-Atlantic Arts as our funding partner. Quartetto Latin Americano, the string quartet in Mexico, is doing a chamber music and strings workshop for local bilingual middle and high schoolers when they come visit in January and that is all hosted by the Mexican Embassy and the Mexican Cultural Institute. They’re going to host a workshop in what happens to be a heavily Latin American and Spanish speaking neighborhood. We’re hoping to eventually have an education program attached to every single concert, whether that’s some sort of talkback lectures, something aimed at the audience, or like what we have now which is actually taking the concert artist off the stage and into the classroom to work directly with students. That’s what we’re hoping to do more of in the coming months and years.”
Dumbarton Concerts has clearly developed a loyal following for their concerts. In which ways are you excited to see your work grow this year?
“Love that question! Yes, you’re right. We do have a really supportive base. We’re very lucky to have an incredible base of donors and audience members who come back year after year, decade after decade. There’s not a small group of people who have been coming to these concerts for 30 or 40 years, so we want to respect and deliver to those people what they want to hear because they’re our audience. But we also don’t want to just tell them what they want to hear. We want to expose them to new music, new composers, new demographics, and they want to hear it. It’s just a matter of getting them here. I would also love to see folks outside of the, you know, 60 plus white and wealthy demographic to learn about this community that we have here because it’s a really unique physical, emotional, and artistic space. It’s a unique community of people who come in and enjoy these performances, and really, that’s what the modern concert goer is wanting. They want an immersive experience. They want a mix of things that they have seen before that they know and love, but mixed in with things that are new with elements that are new, and so that’s what we want to provide. We want to sell and put on an experience that enriches the whole person, whether that’s somebody who is 25 who just moved here and is looking for a community or somebody who’s in their 80s and has been coming to our series for 30 years. We want to cater to as wide of a range of people as possible to give them a unique, immersive, interesting musical experience.”
Next, we got to talking about Dumbarton Concerts’ partnership with Live Music Project and how it contributes to growing their audience.
Can you tell us about how listing Dumbarton Concerts’ events with Live Music Project’s Concert Calendar helps you with your audience development efforts?
“I think any placement on any online calendar is an asset. I think LMP is really interesting because you all have such a unique mission to distribute live music to a wide online audience. I think that’s so crucial, especially coming out of the pandemic as people are not going back to what they did before but reevaluating how they want to attend performances and how they want to move through the world according to how they want to experience it again. I think having the exposure to the kind of life that LMP provides is invaluable. I mean, the fact that you provide that for free is unreal, so I don’t know why we wouldn’t take advantage of that. I think that partnering with an organization that has such a specific and important mission is a no brainer for us. Just the fact that we have a connection and such a synergy of ideas and alignment is proof enough for me. Plus, we get our name out there on another site, more Google search results, and more ticket purchases. It’s a win win.”
LMP’s Concert Calender for the DC and Baltimore area can be found at https://www.livemusicproject.org/events/?include=&near=baltimore-md
Does Dumbarton Concerts plan to continue to add events to LMP’s Concert Calendar? Feel free to elaborate on this response!
“Absolutely. I don’t really know that there’s a need to elaborate just because it’s so clear cut. It’s a no brainer decision for me. There’s no reason not to. It’s been great so far, and we’re happy to have a great connection. We welcome any opportunity to connect with an organization that has dedicated people who care about art and who care about advocating for live music rather than just selling ad space. That is an excellent bonus that will keep me coming back and working with LMP in the future for sure.”
That concludes our interview with Dumbarton Concerts’ Carter Sligh! Live Music Project certainly looks forward to seeing their DC audience grow as they expand their accessibility with the help of their educational programs and their inclusion in LMP’s Concert Calendar.
