The Georgetowner December 6, 2017 Issue

SINCE 1954

VOLUME 64 NUMBER 5

GEORGETOWNER.COM

DECEMBER 6 - 19, 2017

ANNE TRUITT

THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART’S GEORGETOWN CONNECTION

Resident Parking Plan Vetted Real Estate: Coldwell Banker’s Duff Rubin Gift Guides for Home & Hunt Diplomatic Encounters: Sweden

IN TTHIS HIS ISISSUE SUE IN

YOUR NUMBER-ONE SOURCE FOR E VERY THING GEORGE TOWN. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NE WSLE T TER.

NEWS · 4-7,9 Up & Coming Town Topics Crime Report Community Calendar Yuletide Fetes

EDITORIAL/OPINION · 8 Jack Evans Report The Barry Statue Is All D.C. Online Shopping: Urban Myth?

The Honors, Minus the Trumps

BUSINESS · 10-11 Ins & Outs Christ Child Opportunity Shop: A Store With a Mission

REAL ESTATE · 12 November 2017 Sales Featured Property Feature: Duff Rubin Auction Block

LE DECOR · 15

ON THE COVER Dominating the page is Anne Truitt’s 35th Street studio in Cleveland Park, as seen in 1979. Also shown: the National Gallery of Art’s current Anne Truitt exhibit with “Mary’s Light” in the center. (Truitt shared an art studio in Georgetown with Mary Meyer, who was JFK’s mistress and killed on the C&O Canal towpath in 1964.) Also, there is a photo of Truitt herself in her Twining Court studio in 1962. Images courtesy National Gallery of Art.

WEB EXCLUSIVES The Mighty Have Fallen — Some of Them

BY GARY TISC H L E R

The sheer numbers of accused and accusers and the strength of the sexual harassment scandals — launching a #metoo wave on social media — seem to be having a hopeful and surprising result.

Decor Gift Guide

COVER STORY · 18-19

Matt Lauer on the “Today” set in 2009.

Photo by Chad McNeeley, U.S. Navy.

FOOD & WINE · 20-21 Dining Guide Chatting with Chefs The Latest Dish

INCOUNTRY & GETAWAYS · 22 A Hunt Country Christmas

ANTIQUES ADDICT · 23 BODY & SOUL · 25 Holiday Picks For Beauty Fanatics Fantastic Plastic: Look Young, Not Done

ARTS · 26-27 Brother and Sister: 50 Years of Performing Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady DC Artswatch

Holiday Celebrations Underway in D.C. (photos)

BY JEFF M AL ET

On Monday, Nov. 27, a 79-foot Engelmann spruce completed its 3,400-mile journey to the Capitol West Lawn by truck from the Kootenai National Forest in northwest Montana.

Rick Prince, who works for the Architect of the Capitol, aligns the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree’s 80-pound star, made primarily from copper mined in Montana.

Photo by Jeff Malet.

DOWNTOWNER · 28 G O O D WO RK S & G O O D T I M E S · 30 - 31 Diplomatic Encounters Overheard At Lunch Social Scene Events

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK To submit your photos tag #thegeorgetowner on Instagram!

DECEMBER 6, 2017

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Robert Devaney

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Charlene Louis

COPY EDITOR Richard Selden

FEATURES EDITORS Ari Post Gary Tischler PRODUCTION MANAGER Aidah Fontenot GRAPHIC DESIGN Angie Myers Jennifer Trigilio PHOTOGRAPHERS Philip Bermingham Jeff Malet Neshan Naltchayan Patrick G. Ryan ADVERTISING Evelyn Keyes Richard Selden Kelly Sullivan Chesley Wiseman

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT Peggy Sands CONTRIBUTORS Mary Bird Pamela Burns Jack Evans Donna Evers Michelle Galler Amos Gelb Wally Greeves Rebekah Kelley Selma Khenissi Jody Kurash Sallie Lewis Shelia Moses Stacy Murphy Mark Plotkin Linda Roth Alison Schafer

1050 30th Street, NW Washington, DC 20007 Phone: (202) 338-4833 Fax: (202) 338-4834 www.georgetowner.com The Georgetowner is published every other Wednesday. The opinions of our writers and columnists do not necessarily reflect the editorial and corporate opinions of The Georgetowner newspaper. The Georgetowner accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs and assumes no liability for products or services advertised herein. The Georgetowner reserves the right to edit, rewrite or refuse material and is not responsible for errors or omissions. Copyright 2017.

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The figure of Freedom atop the Capitol dome is silhouetted by Sunday’s “supermoon.” Photo by Jeff Malet.

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TOWN TOPICS UP & COMING

December Events Calendar DECEMBER 7

GEORGETOWN ‘GLOW’

‘MUSIC IN WARTIME’ AT THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

Angel Gil-Ordóñez will conduct members of PostClassical Ensemble and Michael McCarthy will lead the Cathedral Choir in “Music in Wartime: A Pearl Harbor Day Commemoration,” a program of musical responses to World War II, including Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 with soloist Alexander Shtarkman. Tickets are $25 to $65. For details, visit postclassical. com. 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW.

Running through Jan. 8, the fourth edition of Georgetown’s exhibition of light art, presented by the Georgetown Business Improvement District, will feature nine installations by local and international artists, with works lit from 5 to 10 p.m. nightly. For details, including a map and information about each installation and related programming, visit georgetownglowdc.com.

DECEMBER 10

FESTIVAL OF NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS

DECEMBER 8

DRINK THE DISTRICT WINE FESTIVAL At the Drink the District Wine Festival: Holiday Edition, participants will savor crisp whites, rich reds and flirty roses while noshing on perfectly paired bites from the vibrant local culinary community.

Tickets start at $59. For details, visit drinkthedistrictwinefestival.com. Park View, 3400 Georgia Ave. NW.

The St. John’s Choir presents this beloved holiday service of readings and music in the tradition of King’s College, Cambridge.

Performed in the serene and radiant beauty of candlelight, the program will feature music arranged by Rutter and Willcocks in addition to traditional Christmas carols for all to sing. For details, visit stjohnsgeorgetown.org. 3240 O St. NW.

DECEMBER 12

CANDLELIGHT TOURS AT TUDOR PLACE History lovers and Christmas enthusiasts alike will be thrilled to see the grounds of Tudor Place lit for the holidays and take a guided tour of the elegant mansion. Tickets are $25. This event is for age 16 and older and reservations are required. For details, visit tudorplace.org. 1644 31st St NW.

DECEMBER 13

THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 Profs and Pints at Bier Baron Tavern presents “The Christmas Truce of 1914” with Mark Facknitz, professor emeritus of English at James Madison University and member of the World War I Centennial Commission’s historical advisory board. Tickets are $10.

For details, visit brownpapertickets.com.

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‘DINING WITH DECORUM’ AT THE WATERGATE The Watergate Hotel hosts “Dining with Decorum,” part of a new series of etiquette courses taught by Maggie Oldham. This two-hour course covers all aspects of American and European dining etiquette and table manners. Tickets are $150. For details, visit thewatergatehotel.com. 2650 Virginia Ave. NW.

DECEMBER 14

NUIT DU CHAMPAGNE AT THE FRENCH EMBASSY The Embassy of France invites area residents to taste a selection of more than 40 Champagne cuvées, with more than 10 epicurean tasting stations. Tickets start at $75 (early bird). A portion of the proceeds will go to the renovation of La Maison Française. For details, visit nuitduchampagne.com.

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TOWN TOPICS

NEWS

BY PEG GY SA NDS

Compromise Urged on Parking Proposal Though it started off on an ominous note, the much-touted community discussion of a proposal to reserve one side of every street in Georgetown for resident parking was lively and civil at the Dec. 4 meeting of the Georgetown-Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

The loud clatter of a police helicopter in search of three alleged robbers could be heard over nearby Volta Park. Neighbors walking to the meeting at Visitation School didn’t know whether to run, hide or stay at home, they told police at the meeting. The police were there to give the monthly crime report (100 incidents, down from 110 in November 2016).

But attention quickly turned to Georgetown’s most stubborn and perennial problem: what to do about parking as residents with children and SUVs increase in number, along with workers, shoppers and other visitors.

Commissioners Joe Gibbons and Jim Wilcox are members of the Department of Transportation’s Georgetown Parking Working Group. Until Dec. 1, they had planned to present the one-side, resident-only parking

proposal for a vote. The plan would allow residents to park on both sides of the street while out-of-zone parkers could only park on one designated side for two hours. No changes would be made to the current, more loosely regulated Sunday parking.

“But the DDOT requested that the commissioners hold off a vote until the proposals could be fully examined at three

more scheduled meetings,” said Gibbons.

The Georgetown residents and small business owners packed into the school auditorium were knowledgeable and passionate. They all seemed to recognize that competition for permanent street parking as close to residents’ homes as possible is as important as flexible parking for the customers of the many stores, restaurants, services and other businesses in

Georgetown’s commercial areas.

They talked about the need for everyone to understand all sides. Small business owners expressed concern that with the loss of one side of the street to resident parking — plus subtractions of metered street parking due to bike lanes, expanded sidewalks, construction sites and months’-long dumpster filling — would make some customers already teetering about the parking situation to give up on the destination altogether.

For some residents and business owners who had been in Georgetown for several decades, the discussions and issues were familiar. Maybe it was Trump fatigue, déjà vu or the general comity engendered by the beautiful Christmas decorations at the school.

But during the 40 minutes or so of discussion, most of the residents and commissioners who spoke out urged compromise.

“There is compromise here somewhere,” said Billy Martin, longtime owner of Martin’s Tavern. “We’ll just have to work together to find it.” Commissioner Zachary Schoepfer suggested that the issue be decided by consensus.

There is time. Commissioners did not expect any new parking proposal to come to an ANC vote before early March.

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TOWN TOPICS

Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Georgetown to Glow Starting Dec. 8 colorful cords connecting trees and light poles by Polish artists Joachim Slugocki and Katarzyna Malejka. “Aqueous,” 62 illuminated platforms by Brooklyn-based artist Jen Lewin, is set up at Georgetown Waterfront Park near the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and K Street.

Other displays include a 15-minute video at the old Georgetown Theatre at 1351 Wisconsin Ave. NW, a series of three works that can be seen through the office atrium of LSM Architects at 3333 M St. NW, a sculpture of illuminated figure outlines depicting refugees at Grace Episcopal Church at 1041 Wisconsin Ave. NW and a piece featuring large bands of looping lights called “Bands of Friendship” at Dean & DeLuca at 3276 M St. NW. Sponsored by the Georgetown Business Improvement District, “Glow” is also partly funded by a $150,000 grant from the D.C.

Georgetown will glow every evening from Friday, Dec. 8, through Sunday, Jan. 7, thanks to the outdoor festival of light art called “Georgetown Glow.” The fourth annual “Glow” will include a number of special events, including a silent disco on Dec. 9 at the Washington Harbour and an extended evening of shopping on Dec. 14.

Nine unique interactive light installations by artists from around the world — some from light-art shows in Holland, Lebanon and India — will be featured in the 2017 edition of “Glow.” They are being placed throughout Georgetown, from the waterfront to the heart of the commercial district on M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, up to P Street and Reservoir Road. The displays will be illuminated nightly between 5 and 10 p.m.

Art works include “Horizontal Interference” at the Washington Harbour, a collection of

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The library includes quiet study rooms, conference rooms for meetings of from eight to 12 people and a large meeting room with an assistive listening system. A winding panorama in muted colors threads its way over the bright-colored bookcases and library furniture. Titled “Paragons of the West End,” the artwork features the names of notable West End residents, including Duke Ellington.

The West End Library is the first new

library project in Washington, D.C., to involve a mixed-use building, a partnership of District government, EastBanc, JBG Smith and Clark Enterprises. It offers more than 7,300 square feet of space for retail businesses and eight stories of apartments above. Bluestone Lane, an Australian-style coffee shop, is scheduled to open next door.

The project, which took about two years to complete, was designed by architect Enrique Norten of Ten Arquitectos, known for its glass-encased libraries and public buildings in Mexico City, Los Angeles and New York City.

The library interior was designed by CORE Architects. Thanks to the public-private partnership, the new library was provided at no out-of-pocket cost to taxpayers, according to District of Columbia Public Library Executive Director Richard Reyes-Gavilan.

$90 Million Secured to Rehab Memorial Bridge Under the FASTLANE grant program, $90 million of the estimated $227 million needed to rehabilitate the Arlington Memorial Bridge has been secured, according to a Dec. 1 press release from Mayor Muriel Bowser. The District and Virginia are contributing some $30 million toward the bridge’s rehabilitation.

Built in 1932, the bridge currently carries almost 70,000 vehicles a day. But it has deteriorated significantly and, without extensive repairs, was on track to be closed

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TOWN TOPICS to automobile traffic by 2021. Over the past six years, a series of temporary emergency repairs have been made. But this year, its total rehabilitation became a top priority for Bowser, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and the Virginia congressional delegation.

The bridge is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The NPS rehabilitation plan includes the repair of the concrete arches and stone facades on the 10 approach spans, the replacement of the bascule span’s steel superstructure, the reconstruction of the bridge deck and sidewalks and the resurfacing of all travel lanes. The one-phase rebuild will begin in 2018, with completion by 2021.

“Nemtsov is a hero who fought for democracy, but is not being treated as one in Russia,” Cheh remarked. “The new street name would serve as a reminder of America’s democratic values.”

The Russian Embassy would have no say over the name change. If approved, the new name would be posted under an existing street sign. But no addresses would change and the new name would have to pass a Congressional vote and avoid a presidential veto. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Floria) and Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Delaware) are among the nine U.S. senators backing the new plaza proposal.

Street name changes often have been suggested in Washington, D.C., usually to honor a historic figure or advance a political agenda. In 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried to rename the street outside the Chinese Embassy after Liu Xiaobo, a pro-democracy dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner who died in a Chinese prison that year. In 2014, the entire Council signed a proposal to change the names of the streets surrounding the U.S. Capitol to “D.C. No Taxation Without Representation Way.” Cheh said she expects a hearing on her legislation early next year.

HELLO! FRIENDS OF LOUIE LLAMA

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Renamed Plaza Would Take a Poke at Putin The District Council is considering taking a political poke at Russian President Vladimir Putin by renaming the block of Wisconsin Avenue that passes in front of the Russian Embassy “Boris Nemtsov Plaza,” in honor of an assassinated dissident who opposed the current Russian administration.

Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh introduced legislation on Nov. 21 to rename the block of Wisconsin between Edmonds and Davis Streets, just north of Glover Park.

CRIME &

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House Break-in; AntiSemitic Graffiti

During a burglary, a woman was attacked inside her Dent Place home Nov. 26 but escaped to the D.C. firehouse on the same block for protection. Firefighters held the suspect before Metropolitan Police arrived on the scene.

A message was sent to the Citizens Association of Georgetown — which termed the incident “very alarming” — by MPD Captain Kelvin Cusick of the Second District about the Nov. 26 burglary and subsequent arrest: “At approximately 5:00 a.m., officers responded to assist D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services personnel at Engine #5 at 3412 Dent Place, NW with an unknown emergency. Upon arrival, officers learned that FEMS personnel had a suspect detained who had broken into a woman’s home across the street by kicking in her front door. The suspect physically attacked the woman while inside her home. The woman was able to escape and run to the fire station for help. The suspect who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, was placed under arrest and transported to the Second District for processing. The victim was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.”

On Thanksgiving morning, anti-Semitic scribbling was found at Rose Park on the side of a metal storage box along the 26th Street fence near first base of the ball field. The graffito read: “Dear Jews stop pushing war with Russia.”

The person who discovered the message was David Abrams, who lives on 26th Street, is a board member of the Friends of Rose Park and is Jewish. He told the Washington Post that he was “totally disgusted” and that

and it’s happening in our front yard.” Having spoken with neighbors, Abrams speculated the marking was done before 9 a.m. that day.

After alerts to the Department of General Services, Department of Parks and Recreation and the Georgetown-Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission, the graffito was removed. Abrams also reported the incident to MPD as a hate crime and defacing of public property.

Earlier in the month, after Halloween, a lot of graffiti was discovered Nov. 1 at Rose Park on playground equipment in the tot lot.

“Taggers were very active last night in our park,” Abrams told neighbors.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

7

EDITORIAL / OPINION Jack Evans Report

Looking Out for One Another

BY JAC K EVAN S

Online Shopping: Urban Myth?

The District Council has proposed a new comprehensive code of ethics that “makes changes to the District government’s ethics laws regarding employee conduct, including but not limited to lobbying, financial disclosures, hiring, nepotism, conflicts of interest, gifts, use of government resources, and post-governmental employment conflicts of interest.”

The code would apply to advisory neighborhood commissioners, who are elected and regarded as city officials. Some commissioners see parts of the new bill, B220136, as a threat.

“If enacted, the newly proposed comprehensive DC Code of Conduct could prevent advisory neighborhood commissioners from participating in neighborhood organizations whose goals and activities are entirely consistent with those of the ANC,” Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Rick Murphy testified in writing and in remarks at the Nov. 2 meeting.

Murphy believes the proposed code of ethics employs an overly broad definition of “personal interest” conflicts. One example he cited is a possible restriction on the input the ANC provides to Georgetown University’s Campus Plan Group. “Student rentals and student behavior are big issues for my constituents,” wrote Murphy. “Participating in the meetings of the Campus Working Group is probably the most effective tool I have for addressing these issues.”

We agree with Commissioner Murphy and encourage the Council to carefully consider the concept, implications and consequences of “personal interest” restrictions that go beyond personal financial interests. The Georgetowner supports the full participation of commissioners on planning and policy organizations that affect the quality of life in Georgetown and other communities, as long as they do so in their official capacity as elected officials.

The Honors, Minus the Trumps Washington is a town of traditions. Every year, certain things happen like clockwork.

It’s a seasonal mix of weather, politics, sports, celebrations and events. One notable event is the Kennedy Center Honors, in which performing arts legends receive what amounts to a coveted lifetime achievement award.

This involves dignitaries, superstars and the peers of those being celebrated, resplendent in their medals and accompanied by friends and family. It has almost always been the case that the president and the first lady serve as host and hostess for the proceedings.

That was not the case for Sunday night’s otherwise sparkling evening, the 40th Kennedy Center Honors. Soon after the nominees were announced, President Donald Trump informed the Kennedy Center that neither he nor the first lady would be in attendance out of respect to the recipients, that the presidential presence would not prove a political distraction.

That distraction — the possibility of a boycott by at least two of the honorees — never materialized on presentation night, though there were enough distractions emanating from the White House. On hand were Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Chief Justice John Roberts, Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein and Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter.

All of the recipients showed up, providing a portrait of diversity, of change and variety and more than a little of what America is all about.

Often slow to change with the zeitgeist in the past, the Kennedy Center has put a little zip in its cognizance of pop culture.

This year’s cohort was a veritable mash-up of the contemporaneous and the traditional, echoing sometimes loudly in our divided culture today. The list included LL Cool J, the multi-talented rap and hip hop pioneer; Cuban American sensation Gloria Estefan (feted by Rita Moreno); super-crooner Lionel Ritchie, whose ballads still have the ability to haunt young lovers; Norman Lear, television’s prescient comedic producer, who gave us “All in the Family”; and Carmen de Lavallade, a dance originalist.

The absence of the president and the first lady caused quite a stir back when it was announced in August. After all, the event and the building itself are a tribute not only to President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, but a celebration of the arts and their importance to the spirit of the nation. The absence of the Trumps seemed like a rebuff of America’s culture and its diversity, which — in the person of this year’s honorees — is alive and kicking.

Will you be doing more online shopping this year?

Your opinion matters. Post your response to Facebook.com/TheGeorgetowner Submit your editorial ideas to editorial@georgetowner.com

8

DECEMBER 6, 2017

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The annual Salvation Army and Safeway Feast of Sharing is the official kickoff of the holiday season in the District.

What a wonderful and well attended event! This year’s feast, the largest on record, brought together volunteers, residents from across the city and public officials to reflect on the year and share a great meal.

The Walter E. Washington Convention Center was buzzing and packed with volunteers running from table to table to serve dinners of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. Staff from Council offices and the mayor’s office were busy greeting and talking with constituents.

The event not only provided thousands of free meals, but also featured a health expo.

It was a pleasure to join Mayor Bowser, Congresswoman Norton and my colleagues on the Council to welcome residents and talk about the importance of community and looking out for one another.

As Thanksgiving comes to an end and the winter holiday season begins, I want to urge everyone to continue to support their communities. It’s important to not lose sight of those still in need as we rush to complete our holiday shopping lists. Giving Tuesday, which followed two of the largest shopping days of the year, focused on reminding people to give back

to the community, either by donating money to a nonprofit or by volunteering.

Take a moment to volunteer with a nonprofit or a soup kitchen. If you’re not sure where, please visit the Greater Washington Catalogue for Philanthropy’s website, cfp-dc.org, to find opportunities to give back.

Of course, we all want to complete our holiday shopping as well. On Nov. 25, the District celebrated Small Business Saturday to encourage residents and shoppers to support local and small businesses. Small businesses are at the heart of what drives our local economy and main streets. When small businesses thrive, our communities prosper in tandem. We are so grateful for the “Made in DC” businesses and all the other local enterprises in Ward 2 and across the city.

Georgetown recently celebrated the opening of its Main Street organization to promote small businesses and encourage economic growth along Wisconsin Avenue. It’s truly a perfect time to shop small.

As always, with the colder months approaching, be careful on the sidewalks and streets. Keep an eye on your neighbors, too.​ Jack Evans is the District Council member for Ward 2, representing Georgetown and other neighborhoods since 1991.

The Barry Statue Is All D.C.

BY M AR K PL OTKIN It’s a few short months away, but this totally D.C. event won’t have any trouble attracting attention.

The attention will, I’m quite sure, not be limited to national recognition. The unveiling will merit global notice.

I am of course referring to the work which is now being constructed by master sculptor Steven Weitzman.

Have no doubt, the statue of Marion Barry will be expertly crafted by Weitzman.

If you seek to get a preview of the excellence of his work, just go down to the visitor center on Capitol Hill and view the ideal likeness of Frederick Douglass that Weitzman created.

The statue of Douglass is a magnificent beauty.

It took a long time for D.C. to be included.

We were excluded from having one of our own until Jack Evans got the local funding necessary and Nancy Pelosi made it happen.

At the unveiling of the Douglass statue in 2014, everybody was there to celebrate: Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Majority Leader Harry Reid, even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The joyous occasion was seriously marred

by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton never speaking the name of the sculptor, Steven Weitzman.

I’m sure this won’t be allowed to occur on March 6 of next year.

On that day, a statue of Marion Barry will

be placed in front of our city hall, the John A. Wilson Building. March 6 was selected because it is Marion Barry’s birthday. This is an individual with legions of supporters and an equal number of detractors.

No one who ever lived here didn’t have an opinion concerning Marion Barry.

He was first elected in 1971 to a seat on the District school board. The members of that body then chose him to be president of the board. In the first election after limited Home Rule was enacted in 1974, he was elected citywide as an at-large Council member.

In 1978, he beat the incumbent mayor, Walter Washington, and the chairman of the Council, Sterling Tucker, to become mayor.

He was easily reelected in 1982 and 1986. And then, after a six-month jail sentence for drug possession, he once again was elected mayor in 1994. When he died in 2014, he held the office of Ward 8 Council member.

Many believe that Marion Barry does not deserve this honor. The controversy and debate will go on now and probably forever.

But, undeniably, Marion Barry is D.C.’s own. The majority of D.C. representatives want him to have a permanent and prominent presence.

So it will be.

Political analyst and Georgetowner columnist Mark Plotkin is a contributor to the BBC on American politics and a contributor to thehill.com. Reach him at markplotkindc@gmail.com.

IN YOUR TOWN

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

Georgetowners Enjoy December’s First Week of Yuletide Fetes B Y PEGGY SAN D S

St. Lucia singers at House of Sweden. Photo by Monica Enqvist.

West End Library.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 WEST END LIBRARY OPENS

Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. elected officials and D.C. Public Library officials, will gather 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 9, for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the debut of the new West End Neighborhood Library, 2301 L St. NW. All are welcome.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13 GBA HOLIDAY MEETING AND 2018 ELECTION

The Georgetown Business Association’s holiday party, 2018 election of officers and honoring of Metropolitan Police Chief Peters Newsham and MPD Officer David Moseley will take place 6:30 p.m. at Malmaison, 3401 Water (K) St. NW. For details, visit georgetownbusiness.org.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21 HISTORIC PRESERVATION REVIEW BOARD

The District’s Historic Preservation Review Board will meet at 9 a.m. at 441 4th St. NW in Room 220 South. For details, visit planning.dc.gov.

Santa Claus arrives on a motor tricycle at Volta Park. Photo by Mance Edmondson.

C

hristmas season entered with a rush in Washington, D.C., as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey was eaten. Even on Thanksgiving Day, the U.S. Botanic Garden displayed its holiday-season decorations, featuring depictions of some of the capital’s most famous memorials and buildings, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, made out of leaves, twigs and natural materials.

During the first week after Thanksgiving, Georgetowners could watch the lighting of some of the District’s most glorious Christmas decorations and trees. On Nov. 25, Mayor Muriel Bowser lit CityCenterDC’s huge tree.

A few days later, the retail complex unveiled

“On Angels’ Tree” by Boffi’s Julia Walter and B&B Italia’s Brian Fell, at “Light Up the Season” at the Four Seasons. Photo by Jessica Yurinko.

its warmly furnished Ice Lounge. Then, on Nov. 30, President Donald Trump and the first lady lit the National Christmas Tree at the Ellipse, south of the White House.

Back in Georgetown on Dec. 2, the Swedish community held a Swedish Christmas bazaar of crafts, gifts and food at the glass-enclosed, multi-storied House of Sweden and Swedish Embassy on Georgetown’s waterfront. At dusk, began the traditional St. Lucia parade of girls and boys singing Swedish and English Christmas and folk songs, wearing white gowns and crowns of candles. Later, Georgetown University hosted a Mexican ballet folklórico with a modest Posadas march of the faithful.

On Sunday morning, Dec. 3, at Volta Park,

the sounds of children’s laughter filled the playground and park as children and their parents met Santa Claus and colored a childsize cardboard card house with crayons.

Midday, the lobby and downstairs terraces of the Four Seasons Hotel glowed with the lights and shapes of nine unique Christmas trees, designed by some of Washington’s top interior decorators for the “Light Up the Season” event, a benefit for Children’s National Health System. The ballroom rocked with the exuberant singing and dancing of Alexandria’s Metropolitan School of the Arts’ “Frosty Follies.”

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BUSINESS

INS & OUTS

BY R OBE RT DEVA NEY

In: Guapo’s at Washington Harbour Guapo’s Tex-Mex restaurant will open early next year in the space in front of the ice rink at Washington Harbour, 3050 K St. NW. Next to Nick’s Riverside Grill, the spot once held the Orange Anchor eatery. Boasting award-winning nachos and salsa, the familyowned business has other locations, including Tenleytown, Shirlington and Bethesda.

In: Vans in Place of Gant Vans — dude, that store for skateboarding shoes — is coming to 3239 M St. NW, which once housed the Gant clothing store. Look for cool, sportive apparel, too, in line with its California upbringing and Costa Mesa headquarters.

In: DCG Sandwich Shop Out: Milano Collection The ersatz, colorfully chic, polyester-mix men’s fashion shop at 1408 Wisconsin Ave. NW has folded. If you wanted to stand out stylishly in the city, this was your place. (Yes, this newspaper had offices upstairs with a

rustic-loft vibe in the late 1990s. The metal stairs on the side of the building were a nice touch, too.) Expect big changes for that old three-story building on a block that is being revived.

Maybe the third time will be the charm.

Formerly Undraa’s Cafe, and before that a Cuban sandwich joint, the eatery at 3147 Dumbarton St. NW, next to the Bank of America, has morphed into DCG (as in District Chicken & Gyro). Sorry to lose the Mongolian dumplings, though it was reminiscent of that Seinfeld episode about the Pakistani restaurant that failed.

In (Zzzzz): Insomnia Cookies

open to serve you once again.” Here’s hoping Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey come through okay.

Out: Camper The classic, contemporary shoe store from Spain at 3219 M St. NW has closed.

Out: United Bank’s 30th St. Office The Winsor Branch of United Bank, once a branch of the Bank of Georgetown, closed Nov. 27. The other Georgetown branch for United Bank remains at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and K Street.

L.A. Group to Buy Key Bridge Marriott Property The Key Bridge Marriott and its property are to be sold in early 2018 to a joint venture of Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital and Woodridge Capital for more than $180 million, according to Real Estate Alert. Across the Potomac River from Georgetown, next to the Virginia side of Key Bridge — with stunning views of the nation’s capital — it is the oldest Marriott hotel property still in use and the second built.

Opened in 1959, the 583-room hotel at 1401 Lee Highway in Arlington will be redeveloped with additional retail or residences added on the 5.5acre property. The Marriott name is expected to remain on the hotel.

The sign is up. Founded in a dorm by a UPenn student in 2003, Insomnia Cookies has more than 100 locations, most near university campuses. The Georgetown store will soon get baking at 3204 O St. NW, where P Street Frames used to be, offering ice cream along with its warm cookies and other sweet concoctions. Most important to note: it will stay open (and delivering) until 3 a.m.

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Out (Temporarily): Ben & Jerry’s This is never a good sign. A sign on the door of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop at 3135 M St. NW reads, “We will be temporarily closing the Georgetown location to make repairs and changes to our shop. This should take several weeks and once all repairs are made we will be

In: Tuckernuck on O Street The brick-and-mortar revival continues.

Tuckernuck, the homegrown preppy-clothing retailer that began as an e-commerce business, is opening a location at 3216 O St. NW in the space occupied for decades by Susquehanna Antique Company.

FOR MORE BUSINESS (240) 482-4000 | CapitalAMG.com Independent, Objective and Comprehensive Financial Planning.

VISIT GEORGETOWNER.COM

John E. Girouard, CFP®, CLU,ChFC, CFS Founder & CEO, The GeorgeTowner Contributing Columnist Securities licensed associates of Capital Asset Management Group Inc. are registered representatives offering securities through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc. a Broker/Dealer. Member FINRA/SIPC. Licensed administrative associates do not offer securities. Investment advisory licensed associates of Capital Asset Management Group Inc. are investment advisor representatives offering advisory services through Capital Investment Advisors, Inc. a registered investment advisor. Capital Asset Management Group/ Capital Investment Advisors and the Institute for Financial Independence are not affiliated with Cambridge.

10

DECEMBER 6, 2017

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BUSINESS

Christ Child Opportunity Shop: A Store With a Mission

BY SEL MA K HENISS I Chris DerDerian joined Christ Child Opportunity Shop in Georgetown as store director in October of 2016.

“I was just awed by the history and the mission,” she says.

DerDerian joins the pantheon of people who have kept the store, at 1427 Wisconsin Ave. NW, in business for more than eight decades.

Established in 1933, the store is one of Christ Child Society’s programs and moneymakers, according to Marianna O’Brien, president of the society’s D.C. chapter. Chartered in 1903, Christ Child Society was founded in 1887 by D.C. resident Mary Virginia Merrick, who became disabled by a fall in childhood.

DerDerian describes Christ Child Opportunity Shop as a nonprofit, but with the concern of a lot of retailers: to bring in sufficient income. “The bulk of our sales comes around our holiday season,” she notes.

A look at the storefront indicates a focus on holiday-related items. The store is named the “Christmas headquarters of ye Christ Child Society.” Passersby can see tableware with colors and motifs appropriate for a Christmas dinner. A Christmas crèche is on display, but so is a Hanukkah menorah.

Chris DerDerian, Marianna O’Brien and Kelly Gotthardt inside the Christ Child Opportunity Shop.

The emphasis on the holiday season goes beyond the demands of retailing. O’Brien explains that an important goal for Christ Child Society in Washington, D.C., is to help children in need in the area, regardless of race, color or creed. This sense of mission is rooted in a story about Merrick’s errand boy,

who wrote a letter to the Christ Child asking for a red wagon for Christmas in 1884.

According to DerDerian, all of the money that is made in the store goes to support Christ Child Society programs, including the provisions of diapers, knitted blankets and books.

DerDerian, 65, majored in art history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has directed museum stores for more than 30 years, at places including the Washington National Cathedral and the National Gallery of Art. For her, such work incorporates opportunities to connect with the public, to be immersed in the arts and history, to choose merchandise and to expose customers to noteworthy things.

“I was hooked,” DerDerian says.

Her museum-store experience is something she carries with her in her work at Christ Child Opportunity Shop. Inside the store, one can see how diverse and varied is the merchandise, carefully curated by DerDerian and Kelly Gotthardt, the store manager.

The inventory includes Asian collectibles, costume jewelry and items made of sterling silver. The prices also range widely, from one dollar to thousands. “If you have a dollar, you can still shop here,” she says.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

11

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12

DECEMBER 6, 2017

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REAL ESTATE

Duff Rubin: Canadian Cool, Miami Heat

BY R OBE RT DE VA NEY “I bleed blue and white,” says the enterprising, Canada-born Duff Rubin in his gleaming Georgetown office on 30th Street. Rubin isn’t talking about the colors of his sports team; those are the colors of real estate company Coldwell Banker, where Rubin heads up the Mid-Atlantic region.

Overseeing 2,100 agents in 30 offices and more than $5.5 billion in sales, Rubin often travels to Baltimore, Annapolis, the Eastern Shore and northern Virginia. The regional office is in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Named president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Mid-Atlantic, in April, Rubin — who graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a degree in economics and played collegiate hockey — began his real estate work in Florida with Jack Lupo Realty. He experienced selling in Florida, Texas and Georgia, each “very different,” he says.

In the Miami-Palm Beach market, he dealt with associates of Gloria Estefan and Shaq. Rubin later acquired the $75-million commercial real estate company and sold it to Realogy Holdings Corporation, owner of NRT, which operates the brands Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Commercial, Sotheby’s International Realty and the Corcoran Group, among others.

The real estate giant known as Coldwell Banker began in San Francisco a few months after the great 1906 earthquake and fire.

With Colbert Coldwell and Benjamin Banker leading the way, the company became “the oldest and most established residential real estate franchise system in North America.”

According to company literature: “In many ways, it was the original real estate start up.

Duff Rubin. Photo by Robert Devaney.

Coldwell Banker changed the way people bought and sold homes across America.”

Indeed, the real estate company’s story matches the growth of the nation during the 20th century.

But Rubin, working in the 21st century, wants to improve the office culture, using interactivity and high-end design to foster

more creativity. Also under revision are agents’ ways of doing a few things — especially since Coldwell Banker is “not number one in D.C.,” he says.

To get to number one, Rubin follows the four principles of what Coldwell Banker calls “wealth building” for its agents, including financial and retirement planning,

a rewards program and professional growth opportunities.

Rubin knows he’s in the business of recruiting and retaining talent. “It’s about the agents, not so much the brand,” he says.

“Loyalty is not that important anymore.

People are jumping.” For him, better agents mean better customer service. “We say we want them to lead exceptional lives,” he says.

As for the change from his Miami life to the nation’s capital, Rubin says the cities are similar in that both have lots of transplants.

Here, apartment rentals cater to millennials, but in Miami there are more condos.

Told, “You need to live in D.C.,” he now lives in Kalorama and enjoys jogging along the National Mall, eager to learn more about his new city and region. “We are doing well in Maryland,” he says, “but I would love to see us doing better in D.C. and northern Virginia.”

There are two concerns for residential real estate firms: the average age of agents is around 57 and millennials don’t seem keen on home ownership. First-time homeownership is at a 40-year low, Rubin says. As if on cue, any comment on the proposed tax reform bill?

“Not helpful,” says Rubin.

Finally, what about those new colors on some company signs? Rubin says the tuxedolike combination of black and white indicates “Coldwell Banker Global Luxury.” You’ll be seeing more of them in Georgetown.

PRESENTED BY THE GEORGETOWN BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

DEC. 9 Silent Disco 7–10 p.m.

DEC. 16 DEC. 14 GLOW All Night shopping event

Book Hill’s Winter Wonderland festive family day

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Dec. 8–Jan. 7 • 5–10 p.m. nightly

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R1_Glow2017-Georgetowner.indd 1

12/4/17 2:46 PM

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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REAL ESTATE

The Auction Block

BY AR I POST

This holiday edition features luxurious, one-of-a-kind gifts — only available at auction — for that special someone.

FREEMAN’S Bracelet Watch With “Pepsi” Bezel, c. 1967 Rolex Estimate: $15,000 – $25,000 Auction Date: December 13 Freeman’s will offer a fine selection of vintage and modern timepieces, jewelry, luxury accessories and decorative arts in their upcoming Holiday Sale. This season will showcase important and rare timepieces from prestigious brands, including Patek Philippe, Piaget, Panerai and Rolex. This timepiece has a black dial with a red and blue “Pepsi” ratchet bezel, completed by a Jubilee bracelet with a fold-over clasp.

BONHAMS Pond Lily Table Lamp, c. 1905 Tiffany Studios Estimate: $50,000 – $70,000 Auction Date: December 14 Bonhams’s sale of Modern and Decorative Art and Design features a wide selection of beautiful lifestyle pieces. Along with this exquisite Tiffany lamp, the sale boasts original stained-glass windows by Frank Lloyd Wright, table lamps designed by Alberto Giacometti and a breathtaking Lengelinie Pavilion Artichoke ceiling light by designer Poul Henningsen.

SOTHEBY’S Polish Synagogue Menorah, mid-late 19th century Estimate: $7,000 – $10,000 Auction Date: December 20 This Sotheby’s sale of Important Judaica features textiles, works of art by Jean-Léon Gérôme and Arthur Szyk and ritual silver and metalwork like this monumental bronze menorah from a Polish synagogue. However, the sale is most notable for its rare manuscripts and printed books, including an illuminated medieval Hebrew Bible from Spain (estimated at $3.5 to $5 million), a newly discovered 13th-century micrographic Hebrew Bible from France and a previously unknown copy of the 1519-20 first edition of the German-Rite Daily Prayer Book, printed in Venice.

DOYLE NEW YORK “Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite Valley, California,” 1944 Ansel Adams (1902–1984) Estimate: $25,000 – $35,000 Auction Date: December 14 For those inclined toward fine art and photography, Doyle’s auction of Photographs will feature a rare and unprecedented Ansel Adams Museum Set. Adams was the preeminent 20th-century photographer of Western landscape. Prepared several years before his death, this set of 75 images is among the most comprehensive known to exist. This is the first time a set has been offered, with the permission of the Ansel Adams Gallery and the artist’s grandson, Matthew Adams.

Bringing the Hammer Down FIN AL SELLING PRICES FO R LAST MO NTH’S FEATURED AUCTIO N BLO CK ITEMS

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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CHRISTIE’S “Salvator Mundi,” c. 1500 Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Auction Date: November 15 Final Selling Price: $450.3 million Record Breaker: The most expensive painting ever sold

CHRISTIE’S HONG KONG Diamond-Encrusted Crocodile Hermès Birkin Bag Auction Date: May 31 Final Selling Price: $379,261 Record Breaker: The most expensive handbag ever sold at auction

BONHAMS “Robby the Robot” Original Suit and Jeep from “Forbidden Planet,” 1956 Auction Date: November 21 Final Selling Price: $5.4 million Record Breaker: The most expensive movie prop ever sold at auction

SOTHEBY’S HONG KONG The Pink Star Diamond Auction Date: April 4 Final Selling Price: $71.2 million Record Breaker: The most expensive gem ever sold at auction

SOTHEBY’S “Unititled,” 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) Auction Date: May 18 Final Selling Price: $110.5 million Record Breaker: The most expensive painting by an American artist ever sold at auction

CATTLE AUCTION, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA Holstein Calf Bred by Lighted Genetics Auction Date: January Final Selling Price: $193,000 Record Breaker: The highest price ever paid for a calf at auction

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STAFF PICKS

Decor Gift Guide Each a unique blend of modern style and classic charm, these unique decor items, favorites of The Georgetowner staff, are sure to bring smiles all year round.

DAYLESFORD BOTANICAL BERGAMOT CANDLE

CALLA LILY PERFUME BOTTLE

Pillar and Post

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

17

ANNE TRUITT The National Gallery’s Knight’s Heritage, 1963.

Georgetown Connection

BY AR I POST

T

Insurrection, 1962.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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he National Gallery of Art is not your average neighborhood art gallery.

While part of the D.C. community, the National Gallery of Art is a colossal institution. On the entire American continent, it has few equals in the breadth, quality and sheer scale of its Western art holdings.

Its collections and exhibitions commonly promote the vanguard of art history: Giotto, da Vinci, Vermeer, El Greco, Monet, Picasso, Miró, Pollock, Newman. As such, it is rather unusual to find local artists within the gallery’s focus.

This is not to say that Washington has not or does not produce great artists.

It is simply that Washington was never an international epicenter for the arts like New York, Paris, Vienna, Munich or Florence, all of which at some point fostered prodigious, groundbreaking artistic communities that shaped Western history.

In the rarified strata of megablockbuster museums that deal in the world’s most high-profile, significant and valuable collections of art, the featured artists tend largely to exist within the parameters of these traditions.

In a way, the National Gallery is unique among its peers because it was built in a city that has never existed in the art-historical spotlight.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art could cite Rothko and Warhol in its cadre of local talent. The Louvre features untold artists who once had studios down the street. However, I doubt anyone in Paris thinks of Cézanne as just some local painter hanging in the gallery downtown.

That the sculptor Anne Truitt lived

and worked in Washington, D.C., for virtually her entire career is not what makes “In the Tower: Anne Truitt,” on view through April 1, an outstanding exhibition. But for Washingtonians, it should be a point of pride.

Finding a map of Northwest D.C. on the wall of the National Gallery that pinpoints Truitt’s many local studios is an intimate, quietly thrilling moment of recognition. It is almost an affirmation, both for local patrons and supporters of the arts and for the passionate, tight-knit communities of artists that have always existed within the perimeter of the Boundary Stones, often unknown and unacknowledged.

Since its foundation, they have used the National Gallery as a source of counsel, study and inspiration.

“Good art has been made here in Washington. That is one of the themes of our show,” says James Meyer, the National Gallery’s curator of art made between 1945 and 1974, who developed the exhibition.

A preeminent scholar of minimalist art, Meyer knew Truitt well. Beginning in 1997 and continuing until her death in 2004, he conducted a series of beautiful and extensive interviews with the artist in her Cleveland Park studio.

(These interviews are a basis for the show’s in-gallery brochure.) Hearing him discuss Truitt and her relationship to Washington, one realizes that this exhibition was a long time coming.

“She was very interested in place, geography, topography and light,” Meyer says. “She talked about D.C. as cartographically in the middle of these two places, of her birthplace and her childhood home.”

AN ANTIPATHY Toward the Brash

Truitt was born in Baltimore in 1921 and raised on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She graduated from college with a degree in psychology in 1943, but left the field after working a few years as a nurse in Boston. Shortly thereafter, she returned to Washington, where she enrolled in courses at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Coming of age in the 1950s amid a terrain of second-generation abstract expressionists, Truitt — like many minimalist artists, including her contemporary Donald Judd — developed an antipathy toward the brash, extravagant brushwork that had come to dominate contemporary art.

“In a way, that makes her a true artist of the ’60s,” says Meyer. “She called that kind of painting ‘rhetorical.’”

On some level, the minimalist movement can be understood as a particular reaction against certain prevailing, increasingly tiresome trends in the American art scene.

And though Truitt bristled at her association with minimalism, she in fact became an elegant practitioner of minimalist art. Her sculptures are freestanding wooden pillars, painted with a spare palette of rarely more than three colors, often just one.

Yet there is a personal language to Truitt’s work that transcends classification. She was a singular

voice, an artist whose work exhibits an overwhelming delicacy, so specific to some untold time and place that it could be forged only from the recesses of consciousness, like the memory of some long-ago morning.

And so much of Truitt’s vision was born from her personal associations with the landscape and atmosphere of Washington and the Chesapeake region.

There is a soft, Mid-Atlantic poetry to her drawings and sculptures, like austere, sun-bleached houses on a flat landscape that all but obliterate the horizon.

“It’s a refraction of a kind of perception that she developed growing up on the

Eastern Shore,” says Meyer. “But it’s not figurative, not mimetic, not depicting. It is a severe abstraction that purges reference.

But what Truitt might have admitted is that she experienced the architecture of the Eastern Shore as these bulking forms looming above her. She was nearsighted as a child and they hadn’t diagnosed it, so she experienced these buildings as shapes and light. So her sculptures can be seen as a kind of a refraction of her experience of architecture as a child. Of course, as she develops, her work gets more abstract and the references more latent. But it’s there.”

Parva Xii, 1977.

MANY STUDIOS in Washington

Significantly, the exhibition explores Truitt’s specific locational influences by tracking her studio migration around Washington. She had many studios in the nearly 50 years she lived and worked here, and different spaces permitted her to create different kinds of work.

In the mid-’50s, she shared a studio with two other artists in a tiny carriage house in Georgetown. All her work from this period is similarly small. She didn’t really begin to make sculptures until she moved into her Twining Court studio in Dupont Circle, across from what is now the Hotel Palomar. She inherited the space from Washington Color School visionary Kenneth Noland when he moved to New York City. In this carriage house, there was space to make a mess, to build structures and experiment with materials.

Truitt was a true studio artist and craftsperson at a time when studio practice and personal craft were being rejected by the intellectual elite. The major artists of this period —

Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin — had abandoned the artist’s hand and turned away from the act of making, using industrial materials and hired technicians to construct their work directly on-site.

“What makes Truitt distinct among this field of artists is that she retained a studio practice,” Meyer says. “And strangely and fascinatingly enough, she did it right here in D.C.” Meyer once asked her why she never moved to New York. Her answer: she couldn’t have a studio there.

“So it’s interesting to consider that Washington is organically a part of her art,” he says.

Her final studio in Cleveland Park, behind her house on 35th Street NW, is depicted in this show through a beautiful photograph, with soft light and heavy atmosphere, where her standing sculptures mirror the gardenlike installation now in the gallery. “It was a kind of fisherman’s shack with beautiful light,” says Meyer, “as if it were in Easton.”

MEMORIES

Given Secret Forms Truitt’s work is about her life, about what she saw and read and felt and thought. Through the names of her pieces — “Mary’s Light,” “Knight’s Heritage,” “Summer Remembered,” “Twining Court II” — their content becomes glancingly evident. Yet Truitt also strove toward a kind of objective form, as if to hide what she was looking back to for inspiration.

They are memories given secret forms, dealing with her life in a way that is neither expressionistic nor confessional.

This also works to evoke unique associations in the viewer. “I honor the viewer,” she once told Meyer. “What she meant by that, I think, is that the viewer brings to the work what he or she will see in it,” he says.

I imagine there are many connections between Truitt’s art and her life in Washington. One of her fellow artists was Mary Meyer, JFK mistress, who was killed in 1964. With a journalist for a husband and a network that included plenty of

wealthy and influential Washingtonians — including Phil and Katharine Graham — she once described herself as “peripheral to the corridors of power.”

But Truitt was discrete and, like her work, not particularly anecdotal. If you want to know the truth (whatever it may be), you will have to try wringing it from the veiled inner-workings of her craft.

Truitt is quoted, rather beautifully, as saying, “I want to hold life up and see what it is.”

Perhaps this explains the faintly prismatic effect of her sculptures, which reflect light around their cubic forms in a way that both absorbs and disperses the full range of her spartan color palettes — everything and nothing all at once. This exhibition, immaculately lit and installed with impeccably delicate precision, brings Truitt’s moving and historically significant work — created in Georgetown and nearby — to life.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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Chatting with Chefs

Fanor Balderrama of Sequoia

BY EVAN C APL AN

FILOMENA RISTORANTE

CLYDE’S OF GEORGETOWN

202–338–8800 | filomena.com A Georgetown landmark for over 30 years featuring styles and recipes passed through generations. The menu is balanced with cutting-edge culinary creations of modern Italy using the fresh ingredients and made-from-scratch sauces and pastas. Winner of many awards, and seen on The Travel Channel, Filomena is a favorite of U.S. Presidents, celebrities, sports legends, political leaders. “Don’t miss their bakery’s incredible desserts” - Best in D.C.

202-333-9180 | clydes.com This animated tavern, in the heart of Georgetown, popularized saloon food and practically invented Sunday brunch. Clyde’s is the People’s Choice for bacon cheeseburgers, steaks, fresh seafood, grilled chicken salads, fresh pastas and desserts.

What’s the best part about your job?

FB: The best part about my job is going home at the end of every day feeling grateful for making someone happy because of what I made with my own hands. I really like to make everything fresh and right in the kitchen, because, as my grandmother used to say, “a full stomach makes a content heart.”

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What does it mean to you to cook and serve in Washington, D.C.?

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202–347–2277 | theoceanaire.com The Oceanaire blends a sophisticated atmosphere with simple, seasonal and regionally-inspired cuisine – the result is “the ultra-fresh seafood experience”. From our wines and cocktails to our seafood, steak and desserts, our commitment to sustainable and locally-sourced ingredients is apparent in everything we do. Reserve your table today for an extraordinary dining experience.

202-333-5640 | townhalldc.com Situated just north of Georgetown on Wisconsin Ave, Town Hall has been a neighborhood mainstay in Glover Park since 2005. Whether you’re popping in for dinner, drinks, or weekend brunch, Town Hall is the spot you’ll want to call home to Gulp, Gather & Grub. Free parking is available nightly after 7 p.m., and during warmer months, our outdoor courtyard is one of DC’s best kept secrets.

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Each month, Evan Caplan speaks with a chef of a Georgetown-area eatery. In November, he chatted with Fanor Balderrama of Sequoia.

Balderrama started his career working at a catering gig soon after immigrating to New York City from his native Bolivia. Later, armed with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, he cooked his way through several positions at restaurants across New York.

After getting married and having children, Balderamma moved with his family to the D.C. area, eventually finding his way to Sequoia, where he now serves as executive chef. Sequoia, which opened nearly 30 years ago, sits along Georgetown’s waterfront with sweeping views of the Potomac River. It recently reopened with a luxe new design and a multimillion-dollar art installation, seeking to create a gallery-like space.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Photo By: The Madious

Fanor Balderrama: I was born, raised and educated in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I graduated from high school in 1992, served in the military until 1994 and then immigrated to the States. I started my first job in 1998, as a sous chef at the restaurant of a financial services company, preparing French and American cuisine. After a few years in New York, I moved to Virginia in 2004, landing a banquet chef position at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

Then, the ultimate opportunity presented itself in 2009. I started a new position at Sequoia restaurant, in iconic Georgetown, Washington, D.C., as a banquet chef. I now proudly serve as executive chef.

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Dig deeper into that background. What’s influenced you from your youth?

FB: My parents worked so hard, and had so little time to spend with me, so I stayed with my grandmother and spent hours in the kitchen together. With her, it was her love, patience and guidance that influenced my passion for preparing delectable dishes that were always shared with family and friends.

To me, the kitchen was the happiest room in the house because it was in there where my grandmother and I created magic together.

DECEMBER 6, 2017

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FB: Cooking and serving in D.C. means a lot to me. I feel very fortunate because I get to display my talent in every dish at Sequoia.

I am very grateful to see guests enjoying our food, prepared with dedication, patience and love. D.C. gets millions of visitors from all parts of the world, and it is always my great pleasure to serve people from all walks of life.

Any celebrities you’ve served?

FB: I was so excited when I was told that Shakira was coming to stay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in 2006 — and even more so, that I would be the one to cook for her. At Sequoia, we recently had the honor of hosting comedian Chelsea Handler and several of her friends for brunch. She is so beautiful and hilarious. It was a treat to serve her.

Sequoia was recently renovated. Do you like cooking in this new space?

FB: With the new renovation at Sequoia, I felt like I moved into a new house, because everything is new — the furniture, stoves, fridges, everything. I felt like a kid on Christmas. I especially love my new office.

What does your cuisine concept involve?

FB: My cuisine concept is pretty simple: Keep customer satisfaction as our number-one priority. I also motivate my staff at all times, making sure they are happy and enjoy work.

It makes a pleasant place to work at. I also like to create innovative new menu items that satisfy our customers and have them coming back for more.

Finally, tell us about the unique neon vacuum-light installation on the ceiling.

Does it help diners take better Instagram photos?

FB: The neon and glass light installation

by Hitoshi Kuriyama in our dining room is a brilliant spectacle to behold. It truly heightens our restaurant’s incredible view and adds a beautiful and contemporary touch to our refined space. We feel so special to have such a notable work of art in our dining room, especially at night when it lights up the room.

It’s very enchanting!

WASHINGTON DC’S FINEST RESTAURANTS

The Latest Dish

BY LINDA ROT H Courtesy Blue Bottle Coffee.

Blue Bottle Coffee, based in Oakland, California, will open its fourth store (Georgetown, the Wharf, Union Market) at the Metropole condominium building at 1515 15th St. NW. Blue Bottle is slated to be acquired by Nestlé USA, which oversees the Swiss company’s traditional food and beverage business in the United States. Nestlé U.S.A. is in the process of moving from Southern California to Rosslyn, Virginia.

Just Opened: Alvaro and Alonso Roche of Bold Family Restaurant Group, formerly Capital Food Restaurant Group (Bold Bite, TapaBar, 202 Donuts) opened Bold Bite Market in D.C.’s Golden Triangle at 1028 19th St. NW. The market serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, with seating for 50 inside

and 30 out. Chili half-smoke with your doughnut? … Calico, from the folks who brought you The Fainting Goat and Tiger Fork, opened in Blagden Alley. Think highend barbecue and big outdoor patio. Nathan Beauchamp is the chef; Tiger Fork’s Ian Fletcher and the Fainting Goat’s J.D Quico guide the bar … Naf Naf Grill, which serves Middle Eastern fast-casual food, opened at 1875 K St. NW, where Protein Bar used to be.

Linda Roth is president of Linda Roth Associates, a public relations and marketing firm that specializes in the hospitality industry. Reach her at linda@lindarothpr.com.

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ENO WINE BAR

202–333–4710 | dasethiopian.com DAS Ethiopian offers you a cozy two-story setting, with rare outside dining views and al fresco patio dining. DAS is located at the eclectically brilliant historic corner of the shopping district of Georgetown. A tent under which all come to feast is the very Amharic definition of DAS. Enjoy the casual yet refined atmosphere that serves up the freshest Ethiopian dishes from local and sustainable food sources.

202–295–2826 | enowinerooms.com HAPPY HOUR: Offered nightly Tuesday - Thursday from 5 - 7 PM & Sunday from 4 - 7 PM. Enjoy select $7 wines on tap. Join us on Wednesday’s for College Nights from 9 - 11 PM and Sunday’s for 30% off bottles. Our delightful wines are best enjoyed with local charcuterie, cheese and small plates.

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202-333-7370 | martinstavern.com Fifth generation Lauren Martin learns about the family business from her dad, Billy Martin, Jr. Since 1933, the warm atmosphere of Martin’s Tavern has welcomed neighbors and world travelers looking for great food, service and years of history within it’s walls. Fourth generation owner Billy Martin. Jr. continues the tradition of Washington’s oldest familyowned restaurant.

202–333–8830 | cafebonaparte.com Captivating customers since 2003, Cafe Bonaparte has been dubbed the “quintessential” European café, featuring award-winning crepes and arguably the “best” coffee in D.C.! Other can't-miss attractions are the famous weekend brunch every Saturday and Sunday until 3 p.m. and our late-night weekend hours serving sweet and savory crepes until 1 a.m.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

21

IN COUNTRY H A U T& E GETAWAYS & COOL

A Hunt Country

Christmas

BY AL LYS ON BUR K H A R D T

Why not trade the hustle and bustle of the big city for a bit of scenic relaxation? Middleburg, Virginia, is the perfect place to unwind and experience the traditions of the Advent season.

The picturesque town, known for its equestrian life, is also a favorite for holiday décor, caroling and other family-filled fun. And the slower pace doesn’t mean you can’t be checking your list.

The historic district offers exceptional boutique shopping and fine culinary delights. Here is our guide to A Hunt Country Christmas.

WINERY BOXWOOD ESTATE $19 to $45

thusiast to one Treat your wine en ltivated in the of the five blends cu se FrenchThe . ion Bordeaux tradit grown on the certified grapes are offers tours and estate. The vineyard nday, 11 a.m.

Su to tastings Thursday to 6 p.m.

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AUGUST GEORGES Lobster Oil | $19 Remember the cook! August Georges offers the specialty foods we love. You will also discover entertaining, dining and living accessories for the well-appointed home.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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ANTIQUES ADDICT

Salt Boxes:

Essential Yet Rarely Noticed

BY M ICHE L L E GA L L E R early 1800s, William Dickinson of Bedford Southern foods and salt are like hand and glove. There are many salty foods specific to County, Virginia, had heard that people were boiling brine from springs for the resulting the mountainous South: country ham, sour beans and sauerkraut, to name a few. Salt salt. He invested in “salt properties” along the Kanawha River and founded the J.Q. Dickinson played a large part in early Appalachian food Salt-Works in 1817. preservation, since meats had to be salt-cured to last the winter, and certain vegetables were Nestled in the Kanawha River Valley, just southeast of Charleston in the small town pickled to preserve them.

Luckily for the Appalachian highland folk of Malden, the company flourished. Malden became “the salt making capital of the East.” who depended on salt, salt licks were common Dickinson’s company made salt longer than in the mountains. The licks were a byproduct of an ancient, untouched sea called the Iapetus the other salt producers in the region, actually Ocean (predating the Atlantic) beneath the continuing to produce industrial salt into the 20th century.

Appalachian Mountains. For millennia, animals Today, two seventh-generation Dickinson had gathered around salt licks that were formed descendants — Nancy Payne Bruns and her where the brine came bubbling to the surface.

Legend has it that Mary Draper Ingles, brother, Lewis Payne — have reinvented an early settler in southwest Virginia in the that storied tradition. Realizing they could harvest salt for culinary purposes, they began 1750s, was captured from her settlement by recapturing salt from the pristine 400-millionthe Shawnee. She and some other captives year-old sea below the Appalachian were taken to the Kanawha River Valley in Mountains. The brine is evaporated in special what is now West Virginia, where the salt licks were, and forced to harvest the salt. She finally sun-houses and harvested by hand, create a escaped and, in retelling her story, told the culinary, farm-to-table salt sold to restaurants throughout the country.

European settlers about the salt licks.

Back in the early days, though, the salt that Hence the beginning of the Appalachian salt was available to many settlers was lump salt. industry. One of the longest lasting Appalachian salt makers in West Virginia, near where Ingles Only after pounding the lumps with mortar T & T_Georgetowner_12.2017_Layout 1 11/30/17 1 was free-flowing salt available for and Page pestle lived, belongs to the Dickinson family.

In the 3:06 PM

Mixed-wood salt box, late 19th or early 20th century, Shenandoah Valley. Courtesy Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates. culinary use. Since salt absorbs moisture from the air, especially in the damp, cool, mountain weather, cooks kept it dry by storing it in wooden salt boxes hung near the fire or stove.

By the 1800s, the practical colonial housewife suspended a patterned and decorated covered salt box on the wall to contain enough crystals for preserving meat or as a granular extinguisher for dousing a kitchen fire. The salt box was a symbol of hospitality in Britain, Germany and Ireland. In colonial American, it suggested a well-run and comfortable home.

Like salt itself, the box might not be noticeable, and yet it was essential for cooking.

Antique salt boxes may look simple, but were typically very well crafted. The collector should take note of the quality of the wood and joints, the hinging of the lid, the hanger and the overall finish. Wooden salt boxes could be covered with decorative carving or were

painted, veneered or left plain. Their value is determined by the paint and the quality of the design, as well as the construction.

Samuel L. Plank (1821-1900) was an Amish folk artist in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, known for his paint-decorated boxes and fraktur. He first became known beyond his community for the colorfully decorated salt boxes he made, signed and dated. Maybe a dozen or so have passed through dealers’ hands into folk-art collections. Although one was featured on “Antiques Roadshow” and appraised for $20,000, most American painted, wooden hanging salt boxes found at antique shows are priced at far less, generally under $1,000. Recently several have sold at auction for between $125 and $500.

All through history, the availability of salt has been a pivotal part of civilization. Salt has been revered as a seasoning that adds depth and complexity to a variety of culinary creations and will likely figure in many a delicious Thanksgiving meal.

Michelle Galler is an antiques dealer, design consultant and realtor based in Georgetown. Her shop is in Rare Finds, in Washington, Virginia. Reach her at antiques.and.whimsies@gmail.com.

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warrenton ~ This grand 101 acre equestrian estate in the Warrenton Hunt Territory and is within easy reach of Washington DC. Elegant custom-built home with 11,000 sf, smart-wired, 3 finished levels-all accessible by elevator. Features include 12-foot ceilings, heart pine floors and granite and Viking kitchen. Guest cottage, Barn, 2 streams, Stocked pond. Stunning countryside retreat. $3,475,000

Upperville ~ c.1823, with a stunning tree lined entrance, offers one of the grand manor homes on 34+ acres in the famed horse country of Upperville. Recently renovated, the home offers wonderful indoor and outdoor living areas. Porches, gardens, barns, paddocks, riding arena, pond, pool and magnificent views from the Bull Run to Blue Ridge Mountains. $3,200,000

Middleburg ~ Absolutely charming, completely renovated, historic farm house on 25 acres & minutes from Middleburg. Features 5000 SF of beautiful living space, new Master Suite with fireplace.& luxurious bath. Vaulted ceilings in Great Rm with a gorgeous stone fplc & walls of windows overlooking pond & mtns. Gourmet kitchen opens to covered terrace.Guest house, stable, run in shed.

Property is ideal for horses. $2,000,000

Marshall~Fully renovated cottage nestled amongst large farms on 1 manicured acre. Enjoy a traditional country home on the outside with a sophisticated, contemporary design within. 3-4 BRs, 2.5 BAs w/open Kitchen and Eat-In area, DR w/ original stone fireplace, LR with builtins, bay window and fireplace, separate Office or 1st Floor Bedroom. Master Suite w/lux BA & His & Her Walk-ins.

New roof, 30+ new windows. Large open flagstone terrace and extensive landscaping. $1,135,000

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Bluemont ~ Outstanding equestrian property on 30+ acres of open fields & lush board fenced paddocks. A charming & beautifully maintained 3 bedroom colonial features spacious rooms,sun room with walls of windowsand vaulted ceiling,fireplaced Family Room and hardwood flrs. Great 6 stall barn with heated tack room,lighted dressage ring & run-in-sheds make this a horse enthusiasts dream. $895,000

Middleburg ~ Custom home on 3+acres. This 6,000+ sq. ft. former model has open floor plan with 5 BD, 6 BA, stunning Chef's Kitchen that opens to Family Rm w/fireplace, spacious side covered porch. Formal LR w/fireplace, DR, Den/Office, & Master Suite with Sitting Room, his & her Walk-ins & Luxury Bath. Quality finishes throughout include hardwood floors & crown molding. Spacious Nanny Suite on top level. Fully finished lower level with Rec. Room. 3-car attached garage. $895,000

Marshall ~ Charming turn key 10 acre horse farm, minutes west of Warrenton. New Hardi-plank siding, roof & Anderson windows. Kidney shaped pool w/hot tub has new cover. 5 Bedrooms & 3½ Upgraded Baths. New custom built center aisle stable, Dressage Arena, Run-In Shed & wood-fenced paddocks. Artist Studio, Green House, Equipment Storage & Chicken Coop with covered run. Gardens with Black Berries, Asparagus & Herbs. $738,000

Upperville ~ Lovely 3 Bedroom Home on 1+ acres on a quiet country lane in Upperville. Second Floor Master with WB Fireplace, Cozy Living Room with WB Fireplace, separate Dining Room for formal entertaining, Full Bath on main level, Laundry/Mud Room off of the Kitchen accesses the Fenced-in Yard, Mature trees, Stone Walls, Detached Garage and in a Great Location! Walk to the Store, the Winery down the street or even to Hunter's Head! This home needs some TLC and is being sold “as-is.” $380,000

Offers subject to errors, omissions, change of price or withdraw without notice. Information contained herein is deemed reliable, but is not so warranted nor is it otherwise guaranteed.

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ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 2C MONTHLY MEETING MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2018 AT 6:30 P.M. 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Room G 9 Washington DC

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Ideal vineyard development opportunity on historic river front property in Charlottesville, VA. Mountain views and equestrian facilities. 434-249-4667

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Office Condominium For Sale (Will Consider a 7 yr lease).

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If you’ve dreamed of a career in marketing and helping businesses to succeed, this is your chance to be part of a community-focused company.

Georgetown Media Group is looking for advertising sales representatives familiar with the Washington, D.C., area. Prior experience selling advertising for other publications is preferred. We have an opportunity to hire, on a full-time, flextime or part-time basis, Advertising Account Executives who wish to work on commission and set their own schedules, while still achieving their monthly sales goals. For details and to apply, contact charlie@georgetowner.com.

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Silver plated open hole. Recently serviced and cleaned. In excellent condition with hard case and carrying bag. Appraised at $800. contact Mark 202 333 3485

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SWAP A GETAWAY!

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Large house on 5 acres, 2 dogs, garden, pond, pier with kayaks, sail and power boat.

Interested in nicely furnished, well-located Georgetown home, say 3 bedrooms—but more importantly, arrangement with mature and reliable people.

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BODY & SOUL

Holiday

Picks

THE LATEST NEWS. RIG HT IN YO UR INBO X.

For Beauty Fanatics

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BY KRY ST IANA B ONHE U R The holiday season is the best time to stock up on great finds for any beauty collection. From products to organizers, you can find just the right gift for the beauty fanatics in your life.

Great makeup starts with great tools for application. For use with liquid or cream applications, Morphe’s 18-piece Vegan Brush Set ($49) contains a range of brushes for all of your eye, lip and face needs. Tom Ford’s Traceless Perfecting Foundation ($85) offers moisture, skin protection and a natural-looking finish for light to deep skin tones. Its buildable medium-to-full coverage provides a humidityresistant base for a poreless, flawless appearance.

A limited edition, Urban Decay’s 15-piece Vault of Vice Set ($120) delivers waterproof, super-pigmented, long-lasting lip wear. Using classic colors (1993, Blackmail, Big Bang and 714), this set comes with a combo of Vice Lipstick, Vice Liquid Lipstick and Vice Special Effects topcoat lip wear to transform any look.

A great way to eliminate clutter, Bleach LA Furnishings Wall-Mounted Makeup Vanity ($219) gives you the space you need to keep beauty essentials organized. The vanity comes with a wood-framed mirror, 45 lipstick holders, 3 slots for palettes, shelf space for nail polishes and compartments for liners or brushes. Kate Spade’s Classic Nylon Minna ($128) is a great gift for a beauty guru on the go. The cosmetic case features a wipeable nylon lining, an interior side pocket and slots for makeup tools. This makeup case makes transporting easy and stylish.

Town Topics Editorial Haute & Cool Social Scene Food & Wine Real Estate Finance Arts & Society Le Decor Business Dining Guide Body & Soul

Fantastic Plastic: Look Young, Not Done

BY RE BE K A H KE L L E Y Inevitably, when becoming a woman “of a certain age” — and looking in the mirror to see your mother looking back — it becomes increasingly impossible to resist the plastic surgeons’ siren song of age-defying solutions.

You want to refresh your face without losing … you. Here is how to make certain things go right.

and proportion while re-sculpting your face to minimize shadows and concavity. This isn’t a new you, a frozen you, but a 15-years-werejust-erased you.

CONSIDER A COMBINATION OF THERAPIES

COMMUNICATE WHAT YOU WANT

“Despite the accessibility of lasers and injectables, there is a limit to their utility.

And at that time, the deeper tissues need to be addressed,” says Christopher Knotts, M.D., of Austin-Weston, the Center for Cosmetic Surgery, in Reston, Virginia. “Surgery can remove extra skin, smooth wrinkles and lift tissues back to their correct position. A mix of approaches, which may still include minimally invasive techniques, can provide that well-rested, younger, but natural version of yourself.”

Striving for the natural appearance, bring in photos of the younger you and focus on the ideal of keeping to your own personal measure

A woman’s appearance is an emotional matter. Despite our modern culture, women

CHOOSING A PLASTIC SURGEON “To correct the effects of gravity, you need to resuspend the muscle and skin. Ask for examples of the surgeon’s work in beforeand-after actual patient photos,” says Joseph Michaels, M.D., of Michaels Aesthetic & Reconstructive Plastic Surgery in North Bethesda, Maryland. “Look for a natural aesthetic skill to ensure the natural-looking effect you want.”

are judged by their looks. It’s a fact. Most women have given everything to their families and their work for years. Now they want to do something that directly affects their feelings about themselves and how others respond to them. It is a profound choice.

CONSIDER A CONCIERGE SERVICE If you’re living alone, or you’re a busy mom and need help during recovery, you may want to be whisked away to a retreat for recovery.

Ask your plastic surgeon if he or she offers concierge support.

Rebekah Kelley is the creator and founder of Virtue Skinfood, a wholistic luxury skin care line. For details, visit virtueskinfood.com or the Emerald Door Green Beauty Spa in Silver Spring, Maryland.

EXPECT TO BE EMOTIONAL

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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PERFORMANCE

Brother and Sister:

50 Years of Performing

V

era Danchenko-Stern, founder and artistic director of the Russian Chamber Art Society, turned 75 on Nov. 16. Speaking to The Georgetowner last month at her Alexandria, Virginia, home, she said it was “unbelievable how fast 75 years has passed. But I had many lives, so if you break it into at least two lives then I’m still a little bit over 35 years old.”

Danchenko-Stern’s first life ended when she emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1978.

“I left Moscow with my two young children, 6 and 11, and two elderly parents. And yet once we got to Rome it was my Roman holiday.

And despite I’m working very hard — the only break from my piano was about two weeks, after which I was immediately engaged into accompanying one of the American sopranos and two of Italy, which gave me a chance to earn some money in order to buy warm clothes for myself and my children, because we [were] supposed to come to Canada during winter months.”

Her older brother Victor Danchenko, a violinist who studied at the Moscow Conservatory with the legendary David Oistrakh, had emigrated to Toronto a year earlier. Abruptly giving up a successful

performing and recording career in the Soviet Union, he had joined the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Danchenko-Stern was to join the piano faculty. (Both later emigrated to the U.S. and took teaching positions at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute.)

A graduate of Moscow’s Gnessin Institute, Danchenko-Stern had been accompanying her brother since childhood. “I do believe that they [her musician parents] pre-programmed me to accompany their son. So I think it was predestined,” she said wryly.

The siblings made their first of several professional concert tours in November of 1967, starting out in Tashkent, the capital of what was then the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, the year after a tragic earthquake hit the city. “That was the beginning of our long journey with fantastic music in all and every combinations,” she said.

To celebrate both Danchenko-Stern’s 75th birthday and her 50 years of performing with her brother, on Friday, Dec. 8, the duo will perform Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 25, Tchaikovsky’s “Meditation,” Shechedrin’s “In the Style of Albeniz” and selections from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” and “Love for Three Oranges” at “Stars of the RCAS,”

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Vera Danchenko-Stern and Victor Danchenko in 1980 and today (inset). a Russian Chamber Art Society concert at the Embassy of France.

The second half will feature performances of works by Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Glinka, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers by soprano Jennifer Casey Cabot, baritone Timothy Mix, mezzo-soprano Susana Poretsky, bass Nikita Storojev, clarinetist Julian Milkis, bayan player Alexander Sevastian and pianists Tatiana Storozheva and Genadi Zagor Now 80, Danchenko recently moved back to Toronto after retiring from the Peabody and Curtis Institutes. On Nov. 19, he gave a concert at the Royal Conservatory with his sister and with his student Martin Beaver, first violinist of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet, which disbanded in 2013.

Equally committed to teaching, DanchenkoStern is also a missionary for Russian vocal music, especially art songs, known as romances. She has taught the “Singing in Russian” class at Peabody for 25 years, giving Peabody graduates an advantage when competing for spots with opera companies, including the Met and Washington National Opera, where Danchenko-Stern has been the Russian vocal coach since the 1990s.

Her last assignment with the company was in 2005, when WNO presented Tchaikovsky’s “Maid of Orleans.” “That was the last public operatic performance of Signora [Mirella] Freni, 70 years old, singing phenomenally the role of 15-years-old Joan of Arc,” she recalled.

In 2005, she and her late husband Lev Stern, who worked for Voice of America, founded RCAS, which now presents a fourconcert season. The singers are among the top emerging performers of Russian repertoire, both native Russian speakers and Americans who have studied with or been coached by Danchenko-Stern. On four occasions, she took students from Peabody to perform in Russia.

Her obsession with teaching singers how to properly perform Russian repertoire began in her years in Canada as a teacher and an accompanist. “The world-class singers made the same phonetical mistakes as maybe young students who wanted to approach this repertoire. And it was not just one single experience. It was sort of like mass problem of how to sing Russian music … without any accent, authentically Russian.”

And what is it like to rehearse and perform with her brother after 50 years?

“It’s a love and hate relationship, like everything,” she joked, “but’s it’s more love than hate. Because we’ve both discovered that it’s not about us, it’s about music-making. …

So it’s just a life conversation of two people old enough now to have something to say with great respect to each other. No more childish screaming and no more, really, words, because what we’re talking is philosophy.”

She summed up: “That’s music, it’s always new. You really cannot step in the same water twice.”

ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT ART? VISIT THE ARTS & SOCIETY SECTION AT GEORGETOWNER.COM

VISUAL

Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady

BY AR I POST

There is something almost indescribably beautiful about daguerreotype and ambrotype photography. The dominant methods of photography for the better part of the 19th century, they glow from within like Caravaggio paintings, shimmering reflections of the world on glass or mirrored surfaces. They feel like more than photographs, as if they truly contain some integral living embodiment of their subjects.

America was at the forefront of the photographic revolution, bequeathing our now-present future an astounding and unprecedented record of our country in its inchoate phases of cultural and physical development. We erupted with staggering speed from a new and untamed nation into a dominant, brutally industrialized world power.

Incredibly, we have visual records of this transformation.

Portraits of men and women were most stunning of all. Through these early photographic methods, the pictures capture something very much like the souls of their sitters. Portrait photography from around the time of the Civil War exposes our national ambition, our diversity, our struggles and our burgeoning national identity through the eyes of our ancestors.

Mathew Brady was one of these photographers. Best known today for his Civil War-era photographs, he established

his reputation as an internationally acclaimed portrait photographer more than a decade before the war.

Brady opened his first daguerreotype portrait studio in New York City in 1844, just five years after the introduction of the first commercially practical form of photography.

By 1851, he was among the most successful camera artists in the United States, claiming top honors for his daguerreotypes at the Crystal Palace exhibition in London.

When the ambrotype began to eclipse the daguerreotype in the mid-1850s, Brady adapted, creating some of the most beautiful ambrotype portraits ever produced. As the decade drew to a close, his studio remained in the vanguard of photographic innovation, producing handsome, salted-paper print portraits from glass negatives.

At the National Portrait Gallery through June, “Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady” traces the trajectory of Brady’s early career through portrait daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and salted-paper prints. Contemporary engravings, as well as several advertising broadsides Brady used to market his portrait enterprise, are also included.

To break it down: a daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate.

Daguerreotypes have a mirror-like surface and are extremely fragile.

An ambrotype is made on a glass plate

Dolley Madison and Anna Payne, c. 1848.

Mathew Brady. Courtesy NPG. coated with a wet, light-sensitive substance that produces a negative image. The negative then has to be mounted against a dark background or coated with a dark varnish to give the illusion of a positive. Ambrotypes were much cheaper to produce than daguerreotypes, required a shorter exposure time and were generally easier to see and care for. The ambrotype made photography more affordable and spread its popularity among the working class.

They seem like a lot of effort — and they were. But it is remarkable how prepossessing these images are, particularly through the lens of a master such as Brady.

In some cases, they are wispy and soft with light, like Dutch Baroque come to life. Brady’s portrait of the American artist Thomas Cole shows a man swept away, physically still and yet stirring peacefully behind his eyes.

Vermeer certainly comes to mind.

It is a suitable portrayal. The founder of the Hudson River School, Cole is among those

responsible for bringing American art out of the dark ages with his almost ludicrously romantic visions of the American landscape.

Those sweeping, saccharine vistas on 10-foot canvases that look like Neverland, which you have no doubt sauntered past in the National Gallery with palpable disinterest — a lot of those were by Thomas Cole.

Other portraits, however, are suffused with a crisp-edged clarity and a kind of naïve, divine stiffness that recall Jan van Eyck. Portraits of painter and engraver John Frederick Kensett and a Civil War artillery officer named John Pelham both contain this strange brew of severe formality and poorly concealed vulnerability that, on a plainly human level, is completely entrancing.

Despite the laboriousness of these processes, there is a reason that so many contemporary art photographers have been returning in recent years to such dated and literally toxic chemical techniques. It is because you can’t stop looking at these pictures. Sally Mann’s ambrotype selfportraits, on view at the National Gallery not long ago, are particularly worth a look.

This is a rare exhibition, in equal parts fine art, Americana and a history of photography.

It is a remarkable opportunity to look into the eyes of the past — and have them staring right back at you.

DC Artswatch C O M PI L E D BY R I C H A R D S E L D E N

A JAZZ NEW YEAR’S EVE

“L’amant d’un jour.”

NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater will sing blues and soul songs from her new album “Memphis … Yes, I’m Ready” at the Kennedy Center’s “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on Sunday, Dec. 31, in the Terrace Theater. Bridgewater, a three-time Grammy Award winner, was born Denise Eileen Garrett in Memphis, the daughter of a jazz trumpeter and DJ known as “Matt the Platter Cat.” Tickets, which include admission to the center’s Grand Foyer Party, are $79 to $89.

EUROPEAN UNION FILM SHOWCASE

MAGFEST AT NATIONAL HARBOR

The European Union Film Showcase, now in its 30th year, continues through Dec. 20 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. More than 40 films will be screened, including Swedish director Jens Assur’s rural drama “Ravens,” a U.S. premiere; Italian director Jonas Carpignano’s Calabrian coming-ofage tale “A Ciambra,” executive-produced by Martin Scorsese; Estonian director Rainer Sarnet’s gothic fantasy “November”; and other countries’ official Oscar submissions for Best Foreign Language Film.

Short for Music And Gaming Festival, MAGfest 2018 will be held Jan. 4 to 7 at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Dedicated to the appreciation of video-game music, the event runs 24 hours a day, offering, in addition to speakers and vendors: console, arcade, tabletop and LAN games; chiptunes; and live video-game cover bands. The Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra will perform on Jan. 6. Advance registration is $85.

WNO HIRES GENERAL DIRECTOR The general director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis — a summer festival that performs works in English and has presented several world premieres of American operas — Timothy O’Leary will join Washington National Opera as general director, effective July 1 of next year. O’Leary, who takes over from Michael Mael (who had the title executive director), is also chairman of service organization Opera America.

Francesca Zambello continues as WNO’s artistic director.

NEW MUSIC DIRECTOR AT CCS Steven Fox, artistic director of the New York-based Clarion Orchestra and Clarion Choir, has been named music director of Cathedral Choral Society, the National Cathedral’s resident symphonic chorus. Fox, who founded Musica Antiqua St. Petersburg, Russia’s first period-instrument orchestra, will give his first public performance with Cathedral Choral Society on Oct. 21 of next year. He is the third music director in the society’s 76-year history, following J. Reilly Lewis, who died in 2016.

Earl A. Powell III.

POWELL TO LEAVE NATIONAL GALLERY The National Gallery of Art’s longestserving director, Earl A. Powell III, will retire early in 2019. Known as Rusty, Powell succeeded J. Carter Brown in 1992. After graduating from Williams College (he is a member of the so-called Williams mafia of art-museum directors), Powell served in the Navy, then went to Harvard and later headed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. At the National Gallery, he oversaw the creation of the Sculpture Garden in 1999 and the renovation and expansion of the East Building, which reopened last year.

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DECEMBER 6, 2017

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DOWNTOWNER

BY KATE O CZYPO K

Archdiocese of Washington Sues Metro The Archdiocese of Washington has sued the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority over restrictions on what types of advertisements can be displayed on Metroowned property, Washingtonian magazine reported. Metro refused an ad for the church’s “Find the Perfect Gift” campaign on the grounds that it promoted religion, in violation of WMATA policy. The ads, which would have wrapped Metrobuses, depict three men and two sheep under a starry sky. The Archdiocese is calling Metro’s decision a First Amendment violation.

The “Light Yards” art installation is on view at the Yards through Jan. 1.

Orbs Await at ‘Light Yards’ The month-long holiday celebration at the Yards kicked off just after Thanksgiving with the light installation “Light Yards.” The interactive exhibition, on view from 6 to 10 p.m. through Jan. 1, features four orbs ranging from eight to 22 feet in diameter, with shadow-theater technology projecting holiday visuals. A selfie globe allows visitors to become part of the display, which has been presented in Moscow, Brussels and Jerusalem.

Officer Leaps from Bike During ATV Chase A D.C. police officer jumped from his bike to try to stop an ATV rider late last month, the Washington Post reported. In a video posted to social media, a group of ATV riders led police on a slow chase through the District. At one point, when an officer got close to one of the motorized scofflaws, he jumped off to try and catch him, but fell to the ground instead, sustaining minor injuries. A police cruiser followed and eventually apprehended the allterrain violator.

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Stars Coming to D.C. Break the Floor Productions and Travis Wall announced casting for the 2018 winter tour of their new show, “Shaping Sound: After the Curtain,” which will be presented at the National Theatre for one night only, Jan. 24.

“So You Thing You Can Dance” season-12 winner Gaby Diaz will star, along with Taylor Sieve, who placed third in the current season, and Nick Lazzarini, the first-ever “So You Think You Can Dance” winner.

Tadich Partner Sues Over Lost Business Food-service company Icon has sued business partner Michael Buich, owner of the Tadich Grill, the storied San Francisco restaurant that opened a D.C. branch in 2015, for breach of contract and concealment, the Washington Post reported. What was allegedly concealed was that Buich’s father apparently disowned Buich’s sister Terri when she decided to move to D.C. and marry an African American man, former NFL lineman Gene Upshaw, who died in 2008.

Public reaction to this alleged racism, first revealed in the Post, has led to millions in lost business, according to Icon.

THERE’S ANOTHER WAY

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CityCenterDC’s “Ice Lounge” survived the warm weekend.

CityCenterDC’s Igloo Avoids Meltdown On Dec. 1, upscale development CityCenterDC unveiled a life-sized igloo that remained on display throughout the weekend. Named the “Ice Lounge,” the igloo, with a plush interior, was constructed from 36,000 pounds of ice blocks. However, due to safety concerns given the unseasonably warm weather, visitors were not allowed to enter the giant snowglobe. Still on view is the annual overhead art installation in Palmer Alley, which showcases 400 modern holiday ornaments.

GOOD WORKS & GOOD TIMES

Diplomatic Encounters: Sweden

BY D IDI CUT L E R

Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter is no stranger to the United States, to Washington, D.C., or, for that matter, to Georgetown. Comfortably sitting in her corner office overlooking the Potomac at House of Sweden, a stunning architectural addition to the Georgetown waterfront, she feels completely at home.

Olofsdotter has lived in the United States before: once, in her late teens as an exchange student outside Atlantic City; the second time

as a student at UCLA for one year when she was 26; and the third time from 2008 to 2011 as deputy chief of mission. Her office then was just across the corridor from where she now sits as ambassador of Sweden to the United States.

She finds the location on Georgetown’s waterfront an ideal spot for the embassy. Light, airy and providing ample space for the many art exhibitions, seminars and various other

Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter.

programs, the architecture and interior design represent the best in Sweden’s values and taste.

Olofsdotter presented her credentials to President Donald Trump on Sept. 8. Before taking up her post in Washington, she served as chief of staff to several foreign ministers, as director of the ministers’ office in Stockholm and as ambassador to Hungary. Her first posting was to Moscow (she has a B.A. in psychology, economics and Russian).

We discussed the large population of Swedes and Swedish Americans in the U.S. Between 1860 and 1900, one million Swedes, one quarter of the country’s population, left Sweden for the U.S. In addition to the consulate general in New York, there are currently 30 honorary consuls throughout the United States.

“I feel I know Washington and really enjoy it,” she says. “This is the place to be at the moment. Washington is the capital of the world. Political decisions taken in this town have a global impact.”

Asked what changes she has noticed in Washington since she was here seven years ago, Olofsdotter didn’t hesitate to mention the explosion of vibrant restaurants. She also observed that Washington is a work-oriented city and that, while people work extremely hard during the week, weekends are apt to be free — a not unappreciated fact.

The ambassador sometimes has a chance to get out of Washington and meet people in other cities. She particularly enjoyed a recent trip to a small town outside Pittsburgh, where she was able to meet and talk with locals.

With a very full schedule — 450 guests in five days last week — she doesn’t have much time to pursue her personal interests, such as golf, jogging and seeing an occasional movie.

She is also a single mom for the moment, accompanied by her 13-year-old daughter. Her husband and son will arrive later on.

“I am a young woman of 51 and really love my job,” Olofsdotter says with a big smile.

She attributes this to coming from a family in which everyone has always loved their jobs.

Her mother owned an exclusive shoe store, which explains why the ambassador has at least 60 pairs of shoes. “Even if many are over 20 years old, they always come into style again!”

She smiled when I referred to the legacy

of legendary Swedish ambassadors in Washington, such as the well-loved Wilhelm Wachtmeister (called Willy by his friends), Rolf Ekéus and Jan Eliasson. In fact, Ekéus, in Washington on a nuclear project, was just about to come into her office as I was leaving it The many programs the embassy offers are based on a single theme each year. Seminars bring in American experts to work with their Swedish counterparts to focus on current global problems, including migration, human rights, economics, trade and health care. Next year, there will be a strong focus on job creation: what will the future economy look like and how will it be affected by climate change, women in the workforce, automation?

The issues most important to the ambassador, on which she intends to focus, are trade — she espouses an open and free trade policy — and defense. In respect to the latter, she hopes to deepen the cooperation between Sweden and the United States. This past September, Sweden held one of its largest defense exercises in 20 years, with 20,000 troops, including 1,500 from the United States.

Given a certain amount of unease in the region, Sweden will resume mandated military service, discontinued seven years ago, in 2018. This does not send people off to war, but provides military training should it be necessary. About 100,000 persons are eligible for the draft, but only four to six thousand will be called.

Since 2014, Sweden has adopted a feminist foreign policy, the first country in the world to do so. This includes peace, security, trade and development efforts where a systematic gender perspective will be applied. Currently, the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for EU Affairs and Trade and the Minister for International Development, Cooperation and Climate are posts all held by women.

Most exciting locally is the celebration of the Ingmar Bergman centennial. A collaboration with the Kennedy Center, it will include discussions, seminars and film screenings. On Dec. 4, there was a special event with Liv Ullmann at House of Sweden.

The stage adaptation of the 1996 film “Private Confessions,” both directed by Ullmann, will be presented at the Kennedy Center on Dec. 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Liv Ullmann Launches Bergman 100 at House of Sweden

BY RO B E RT DEVA NEY In town for “Private Confessions” at the Kennedy Center this week, actress-director Liv Ullman with the National Theater of Norway spoke of legendary film auteur Ingmar Bergman upon his centennial in 2018.

Introducing Ullman to the House of Sweden audience on Dec. 4 was Swedish Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter as well as Norwegian Ambassador Kåre R. Aas. The Swedish Bergman, who died 10 years ago, was praised for his breakthrough movies and plays.

He was about “finding the holiness of the human being,” said Ellmann, who visited him on “the last afternoon of his life, as in his last film.” Asked why she came, Ellmann replied: “You called for me as you called for millions of others.”

The Bergman Centennial Jubilee — with events, films and plays at the Swedish Embassy, Kennedy Center, National Gallery and the American Film Institute — will be celebrated around the world next year.

Norwegian Ambassador Kåre Aas, actress-director Liv Ullmann and Swedish Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter at the House of Sweden Dec. 4. Photo by Robert Devaney.

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OVERHEARD AT LUNCH:

GOOD WORKS & GOOD TIMES

Stories of the Veep’s House

BY KAT E OCZ Y P OK

BY R OBERT D EVAN EY It may be relatively new as an official residence, but the Queen Anne-style home on Massachusetts Avenue on the grounds of the Naval Observatory is more livable than the White House, say many vice presidents. It’s a place so full of stories that Charles Denyer wrote a huge book about it, “Number One Observatory Circle” and was cheered by family and friends at a Nov. 9 book signing at the Old Ebbitt Grill.

The White House holiday decorations got mixed reviews this year.

Mixed Reviews for Melania Trump’s Holiday Décor First lady Melania Trump unveiled the 2017 White House holiday decorations in a short video last month. Though some praised the administration’s traditional aesthetic, others went crazy on Twitter, captioning photos “American Horror Story” or using Photoshop to insert “Stranger Things” monsters. Meanwhile, President Trump may not be as Grinchy as he seems; Obama family holiday cards are rumored to be on display.

Portrait Gallery Salutes American Icons

Matt Lauer Ousted from ‘Today’ Show

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery continued its biannual tradition of paying homage to five American icons. At the 2017 American Portrait Gala, held Nov. 19, the honorees were Rita Moreno and four filmmaker Spike others were honored Lee, actress Rita at the National Portrait Gallery.

Moreno, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, AIDS researcher Dr. David Ho and choreographer Bill T. Jones.

Adding to the long list of men accused of sexual misconduct, Matt Lauer’s “Today” show contract was terminated in late November, just after Thanksgiving. According to a Variety exclusive, Lauer exposed himself in front of a female NBC employee, gave a sex toy to another female employee and had a lock installed on his office door that he could activate with the push of a button.

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Fairmont Tree Lighting with Santa

BY M ARY BIR D The Fairmont Hotel at 24th and M Streets held its 14th annual Tree Lighting Ceremony in the hotel’s renovated courtyard Nov. 28 to benefit Toys for Tots. Guests of all ages enjoyed a visit with Santa, the U.S. Marine Corps Guard Presentation of Colors, holiday carols by the Georgetown Visitation Madrigals and treats from the hotel’s pastry chefs. More than 600 toys were collected for Toys for Tots during the event.

PEN/Faulkner Founding Friends Luncheon Features Deborah Tannen

As of Nov. 27, George H.W. Bush has a new distinction. The former president is now the longest living president, at 93 years and 166 days. Jimmy Carter is a close second, clocking in at 93 years and 55 days. The other living presidents are younger (no surprise). George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are both 71 and Barack Obama is in his 50s.

The Bonjeans’ annual holiday extravaganza will take place on Dec. 9 this year, and there have already been clues as to who their celebrity guest will be, the Hill reported. GOP strategist Ron and wife Sara have a yearly fete that has previously featured such surprise guests as rapper Flavor Flav and actor Gary Busey. This year’s first clue: scenes from the 1970s “Wonder Woman” TV show.

Carlos Elizondo, Joe Biden’s social secretary, points out details in photos of the Bidens to author Charles Denyer.

Sgt. Tehmal Farrington; emcee Tommy McFly, Host of 94.7 FM the Tommy Show; Lance Corporal Tyree Edmond, Santa Claus; Color Guard Corporal Jason Stolecki; Kelly Collis, co-host of “The Tommy Show” and Lance Corporal Peter Kanyita. Courtesy Fairmont Hotel.

George H.W. Bush Is Oldest POTUS

Bonjeans’ Celebrity Guest … Any Guesses?

Author Charles Denyer with Frank Randolph, who decorated the vice president’s house for the Cheneys.

BY M ARY BIR D

Bernie Sanders is up for a Grammy.

Bernie Sanders Nominated for Grammy Yes, you read that headline correctly. Bernie Sanders, the man frequently impersonated by look-alike (and distant cousin) Larry David, has been nominated for a Grammy for the audio recording of his book “Our Revolution.”

The New York Times reported that late-night hosts went wild with the news. Seth Meyers joked that Sanders was nominated in the “shouted word” category.

Sculptor Joan Danziger and Sharon Glickman, felled by flu and not present, hosted a Nov. 29 luncheon at Danziger’s residence and sculptor studio, where author Deborah Tannen spoke of her recent publication “You’re the Only One I Can Tell.” The author, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and author of three New York Times best sellers, told of the heartbreak of losing a close friend and being unable to tell her “how horrible I felt about her dying.” She interviewed 80 women ranging in age from nine to 97 to probe the ways women friends talk and how those ways can bring friends closer or pull them apart.

Joan Danziger, Deborah Tannen Founding Friends co-chair Katherine Field Stephen

GOOD WORKS & GOOD TIMES

Together Again for Ben

BY R OBE RT DEVA NEY A TV biography of Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, who died in 2014, made its world premiere on HBO Dec. 4. As one of the most important newsmen in American history, he was front and center with the Washington Post during the Watergate political scandal. For many Georgetowners, the documentary is also story about one of their neighbors, who lived on N Street. “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee” had a special presentation at the Newseum Nov. 8 for Bradlee’s family, friends and colleagues. It was a gathering of those who recalled the Watergate reporting days, such as those one-time cub reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, as well as those keen to highlight the editor’s life, such as Bradlee’s son Quinn, who pushed the idea of the film in the first place.

Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee’s widow Sally Quinn, Bob Woodward and Richard Plepler, chairman and chief executive officer of HBO. Photo by Neshan H. Naltchayan.

Quinn Bradlee, son of Ben Bradlee, with his mother, Sally Quinn. Photo by Neshan H. Naltchayan.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan). Photo by Neshan H. Naltchayan.

31st Lombardi Gala Snaps $1.4 Million The 31st Lombardi Gala raised $1.4 million in support of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center Nov. 18 at the Ritz-Carlton on 22nd Street — thanks to the 700 in the room and other supporters, including gala co-chairs Bruce Fried and Lisa Hill and Jerry and Catherine Castro, along with DeMaurice Smith and the NFL Players Association. Honorees were TV journalist Bryant Gumbel, philanthropist Jeanne Ruesch and researcher Darren Mays, assistant professor of oncology. Photos by Lisa Helfert/Georgetown University.

DeMaurice Smith (right), executive director, NFL Players Association and honor chair of the Lombardi Gala, presents the NFL Players Association Georgetown Lombardi Award to television journalist and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel.

Vincent T. Lombardi, II, grandson of the cancer center’s namesake, presented the John F. Potter, MD, award to Georgetown Lombardi’s Darren Mays, PhD, MPH.

Holiday Gala Guide DECEMBER 8

DECEMBER 16

IMAGINATION STAGE’S ‘BELLA NOTTE’ GALA

THE WASHINGTON OPERA SOCIETY PRESENTS CHRISTMAS IN SLOVENIA

Celebrating Imagination Stage’s 38 years as the largest and most respected multidisciplinary theatre arts organization for young people in the D.C. metropolitan region, the gala will feature a seated dinner complemented

by Italian-inspired performances that feature Imagination Stage students and professional actors. The Embassy of Italy. Contact events@ imaginationstage.org.

Under the patronage of Ambassador of Slovenia Stanislav Vidovič, the Washington Opera Society will hold an Operatic Holiday Songfest featuring Jesús Daniel Hernández and Elizabeth Treat among others in performance.

In addition, the evening will include cocktails, a Slovenian dinner and desserts. Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia. Make reservations through Instant Seats or call 202-386-6008.

DECEMBER 10

DECEMBER 18

WASHINGTON BALLET’S NUTCRACKER TEA PARTY

CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON’S HOLIDAY CONCERT AND GALA

Ginger Dietrich and Andrea Rinaldi will co-chair a “Nutty Tea” with hands-on activities and the opportunity to pose for photographs with members of “the Nutcracker” cast. The tea benefits the Washington Ballet’s education and community development programs.

Proceeds raise critical funds to provide quality dance performance and training. National Museum of Women in the Arts. Contact Elissa Staley Holub at 202-274-4518 or estaley@ washingtonballet.org.

Kirsti Kauppi, the Ambassador of Finland, will be the honorary patron for an elegant and festive celebration of the season benefitting Choral Arts to top off the year-long centennial independence celebration “Suomi Finland 100.” The evening begins with “A Choral Arts Christmas,” a concert with the Choral Arts Chorus in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall followed by a reception and silent auction on the Roof Terrace, gourmet dinner and dancing.

Kennedy Center. Contact Carolyn Purcell at 202-244-3669 or cpurcell@choralarts.org.

Washington Ballet Dialogue at the Arts Club

BY M ARY BIR D Elvi Moore, former general director at the Washington Ballet and right hand to founder Mary Day, interviewed Artistic Director Julie Kent as a part of the club’s Evenings with Extraordinary Artists Series Nov. 29. Kent came to the Washington Ballet following her retirement as prima ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre. A film of her final accolades flashed as she shared her visions for the future of the Washington Ballet and said that “a dancer is always in pursuit of what’s next” and “I think I came here for all the right reasons.” The Washington Ballet is presenting “The Nutcracker” at the Warner Theatre through Dec. 24.

Elvi Moore and Julie Kent before a portrait of President James Monroe.

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