Fourth-Annual Ruth Bader Ginsberg Memorial Recital Features Pacifica Quartet & Nina Totenberg

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2026

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FOURTH-ANNUAL RUTH BADER GINSBURG MEMORIAL RECITAL
FEATURES PACIFICA QUARTET & NINA TOTENBERG

The program, which takes place on Sunday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Sixth & I,

features two world-premiere works for string quartet, co-commissioned by

Washington Performing Arts.

WASHINGTON– Pacifica Quartet and NPR’s Nina Totenberg collaborate on “Revolutionary Portraits: Our Better Angels,” at Sixth & I on Sunday, April 12 at 7:30 PM. The program celebrates the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the enduring spirit of American transformation.

The concert opens with Florence Price's String Quartet in G Major before presenting two world-premiere works for string quartet and narrator. Gabriela Lena Frank's The Edge of Everything is an elegy for environmental pioneer Rachel Carson, and Jennifer Higdon's Steps for Justice honors Justice Ginsburg, with text by Patrice Michaels, a vocalist, composer, and Ginsburg's daughter-in-law. The evening concludes with Beethoven's String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, performed with the audacious Grosse Fuge, Op. 133.

Higdon met the late Justice 10 years ago, during the premiere of her work “Cold Mountain” at the Santa Fe Opera. When Washington Performing Arts notified Higdon of the commission, she immediately knew she wanted to highlight Ginsburg’s wisdom and reflections on the law, and greater humanity.

“Justice Ginsburg was an amazing individual with a keen, brilliant mind,” Higdon said. “I was so moved by her generosity of spirit to come backstage 10 years ago to meet the cast, the composer, and the librettist of my opera; all of us were starstruck.”

Longtime friend of Justice Ginsburg, Nina Totenberg, will serve as the narrator for “Steps for Justice” and “The Edge of Everything,” replacing actress Sigourney Weaver, who had to withdraw from the performance due to scheduling conflicts.

In Frank’s world premiere piece, Totenberg will inhabit Rachel Carson as a character, building from quiet wonder through defiance into the devastating momentum of the work’s climax. The elegy’s text, written by MacArthur Fellow, ornithologist, and author J. Drew Lanham, captures Carson’s wonder at tide pools, her fury at poisoned fields, and her quiet insistence on kinship with every living thing.

“In setting Drew’s text, I worked as dramaturg alongside my role as composer, shaping the words so that the narrator has genuine dramatic scope — room to inhabit Carson as a character, to build from quiet wonder through defiance into the devastating momentum of the central climax, where Carson’s tireless labor and the cancer consuming her converge: ‘I warned of this. And… it found me first.’ The narrator is not someone to be merely accompanied. She is a full member of the ensemble, a fifth voice whose silences are as composed as the quartet’s, whose breath and timing shape the music,” said Frank.

The concert is the fourth-annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital—a Washington Performing Arts performance honoring longtime friend of the organization and elevating new work of established and renowned artists. In summer 2021, Washington Performing Arts established the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Fund to celebrate the Justice’s life, legacy, and love of music with an annual award and recital in her memory. The Washington Performing Arts Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital serves as a creative initiative connecting Justice Ginsburg’s love of music, the esteemed artists she championed and befriended, and the future of the vocal and instrumental arts in which she delighted.

The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Recital features artists at any stage of their career who exemplify what Justice Ginsburg most valued in Washington Performing Arts and within the arts more broadly: excellence, innovation, and inclusion. The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Award provides financial support towards bringing a special project, performance, or collaboration to life for the Recital. 

Tickets to “Revolutionary Portraits: Our Better Angels” are $80.50, including fees, and are available at www.washingtonperformingarts.org/event/pacifica-quartet 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

[Pacifica Quartet]

[Nina Totenberg]

ABOUT WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS 

One of the most established and honored performing arts institutions in America, Washington Performing Arts has engaged for 60 years with artists, audiences, students, and civic life. The city is truly our stage: for decades, in venues ranging from concert halls and clubs to public parks, we have presented a tremendous range of artists and art forms, from the most distinguished symphony orchestras to both renowned and emerging artists in classical music, jazz, international genres, and more. We also have an ever-expanding artistic and educational presence on the internet, envisioning ongoing opportunities for online connection and community.

Washington Performing Arts deeply values its partnerships with local organizations and other arts institutions. Through events online and in myriad performance venues and neighborhoods, we engage international visiting artists in community programs and introduce local artists to wider audiences. We place a premium on establishing artists as a continuing presence in the lives of both young people and adults through residencies and education programs.

Our achievements have been recognized with a National Medal of Arts and with four Mayor’s Arts Awards from the DC Government. We have now embarked upon our second half-century, ever inspired by the motto of our founder, Patrick Hayes: “Everybody in, nobody out.”

Follow Washington Performing Arts on Social Media:

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