Free, no registration required.

Celebrate the reopening of the newly conserved Peacock Room with this special in-gallery performance. Drop in to hear the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps Modern Flute Ensemble perform "Harmony in Blue and Gold," a composition by contemporary composer Eric Ewazen inspired by the Peacock Room by James McNeill Whistler. Ewazen’s ornate textures and impressionist moods express Whistler's unique environment through a musical world of sounds and lines. The room was originally designed to showcase a Chinese blue-and-white porcelain collection, and the music represents the excitement one feels when viewing this room, with its vivid palette of colors, intricate paintings offsetting elaborate shelves of porcelain, and spectacular gold-coffered ceiling and embossed leather walls.

These two performances will be free, and advance registration is not required. Come early to join a curator-led gallery talk at noon in the Peacock Room prior to the performances.

The Modern Flute Ensemble is one of the many chamber ensembles of the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. The US Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, “Official Escort to the President,” is a US Army premier band permanently stationed at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia. Each member of the Ensemble is a fife musician in the corps, with an extensive background on flute. The Modern Flute Ensemble performs recitals, masterclasses, and concerts at flute conventions, universities, and venues in the Washington, DC, area and throughout the United States.

Members include: SSG Erin Morgan, SSG Shannon Moore, SSG Julia Amadee and SSG Laura Zabanal

Composer Eric Ewazen was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and is the recipient of numerous composition awards and prizes. Recent premieres of his orchestral and wind ensemble works have been given by the Charleston Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife in Spain, Orquesta Sinfonica Carlos Chavez in Mexico City, and the Moment Musicale Orchestra of Taiwan. He holds a BM from the Eastman School of Music, and MM and DMA degrees from Juilliard. He has been on the Juilliard faculty since 1982.