2025 Epiphany Festival | Maurice Ravel’s France

The Epiphany Festival will dedicate our 2025 festival to the indispensable Maurice Ravel in honor of his 150th birthday. Over the course of three mainstage concerts, three salon performances, and other outside activities, we will hear and discover the musical environments in which Ravel lived and worked, exploring works by Lili Boulanger, Gabriel Fauré, Jeanne Leleu, Florent Schmitt, and many others alongside works by Ravel himself. Performances will include works for vocal soloists, piano, small chamber ensembles, and our final concert for chorus, soloists, and orchestra.

The 2025 festival will take place from February 2 - 9 at Westmoreland UCC in Bethesda.

Information about the 3 performances at Westmoreland UCC are below.

Performance #1: February 2nd at 3:00 pm

Redefining Sound: Iconoclastic works for voice, instruments, and piano

Enjoy an afternoon of chamber music and art song as we explore some of Ravel’s most sumptuous works alongside other iconoclastic French classics. The performance will feature Ravel’s Histoires naturelles, which revolutionized the manner in which French composers set text, and his Chansons Madécasses for voice and chamber ensemble. Also featured are works by Debussy, Charbrier, and Saint-Saëns.

Performance #2: February 7th at 7:30 pm

Other places, Other Times: An Evening of Art Songs (and a Sonata)

Our beloved evening of song returns with works for voice and piano by Ravel, Jeanne Leleu, and the American impressionist Charles Tomlinson Griffes. All these works explore the concept of “other” - other languages, other cultures, other time periods. Ravel’s jazz-inspired Sonata for Violin and Piano, written after his trip to the United States, will bring the evening to a spirited close.

Performance #3: February 8th at 7:30 pm

Maurice, Lili, and the Prix de Rome: Music for choir, soloists, and chamber orchestra

Maurice Ravel and Lili Boulanger are each deeply associated with the Prix de Rome, the top French prize in music, though each for different reasons - she was the first woman to win the prize, while Ravel was notoriously denied the prize in 1905. Our choral concert opens with two works from 1905 by Ravel, his last entry for the contest, L’aurore, contrasted alongside his masterful Shéhérazade for soprano and orchestra, sung by Laura Choi Stuart. Lili’s epic masterwork and final composition, Psaume CXXX, closes the program.