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Category: Washington DC

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Food for Thought: Presidents, Premiers at Press Club Luncheons

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

For decades at the National Press Club, America got acquainted with the men and women who made history: presidents and premiers, rising stars and old heroes, allies and enemies, establishment figures and revolutionaries – all hoping to explain themselves, over lunch, to the public. “I am not afraid of any questions for one reason: I …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

All This Jazz

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

The human voice is music’s only pure instrument, jazz singer Nina Simone once wrote – it has notes no other instrument possesses. “It’s like being between the keys of a piano,” Simone wrote in a draft of an unpublished autobiography recently discovered in a Library of Congress collection. “The notes are there, you can sing …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Library Bestows Gershwin Prize on Willie Nelson

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Whenever Willie Nelson’s bus rolls into town, actor and host Don Johnson said, you know you’re in for a good time, a big party. Wednesday night at DAR Constitution Hall was no exception. The Library of Congress awarded its Gershwin Prize for Popular Song to Nelson on Wednesday with a musical party featuring more than …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

National Book Festival Redux

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

“I cannot live without books,” Thomas Jefferson famously once said. The 15th National Book Festival last week provided evidence that plenty of others can’t, either. Thousands of book lovers descended on the Washington Convention Center on Saturday to see a record 170-plus authors and illustrators, pay tribute to America’s fighting men and women, explore the …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A Prize for the Piano Man

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Last Wednesday, the Library of Congress celebrated the music and career of singer-songwriter Billy Joel, awarding him the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. A star-studded cast walked a packed house at the DAR Constitution Hall through Joel’s own songbook during a tribute concert. I myself had the honor and privilege to also take the stage as a …