Music Salons at The Hay-Adams

The Magic of Live Music 

Angel Gil-Ordóñez

For me, The Hay-Adams is more than just a building. It’s a space where the past and the present converge, in ways both subtle and sensorial. The hotel’s sophisticated and relaxed ambience makes it an especially inviting place – and also creates the perfect backdrop for the intimate, captivating Music Salons featuring performances by PostClassical Ensemble.  

And, as Music Director of PostClassical Ensemble, which performs at Music Salon events, I find the Hay-Adams Room, in particular, to be especially poignant. Here, the distance between the performers and the audience melts away, creating a magical sense of shared experience that's both exhilarating and deeply moving.  

Music is my lifeblood. It courses through my veins, shaping my thoughts, my emotions, and my very being. I grew up in Madrid and played instruments from a young age, but never considered that music might become a career. 

When the London Symphony came to town and I first saw Sergiu Celibidache conducting, that perspective changed. I was electrified. 

Until that moment, as a violinist, I had only had my own personal experience of each piece. But I saw something on that stage that has shaped my entire life: as a conductor, you can share feelings, thoughts and musical ideas, not only with the musicians, but also with the audience. 

A symphony orchestra is utterly human, and conducting one is so gratifying. Each moment, each breath, each note is a thing of beauty. The spirituality of it is astounding. Without any verbal communication whatsoever, you have a hundred people working together, playing music and sharing expression, for a long time. And along with that, you have hundreds more in the audience who are experiencing something that will never happen again. 

Music, you see, doesn’t live anywhere. It’s a very specific thing that only happens once.  Music performed live is one of very few art forms that’s so fleeting. Every time it’s performed, it’s different – and then, it’s gone. It’s why music is so exciting and so essential to our humanity.  

This awareness, and the need to preserve and share the live experience of listening to music, drives the mission of Post Classical Ensemble.

During a performance, there’s a constant thread of connection between the music itself, the musicians, their instruments, the conductor, the audience, and also the venue. Consciousness of the place is crucial and defines the performance. Beethoven’s 5th performed at Kennedy Center would sound different than it would at the Lincoln Center, or outdoors – or in the Hay-Adams Room. As a musician and interpreter of the nuance and emotion and technicality of music, you have to react to how place influences acoustics.  The atmosphere, too – audiences and performers alike are different daily, and bring different energy to each performance. You feel the audience and they feel the performance.

This is so pronounced in a venue as unique and intimate as the Music Salons. I’ve been a huge fan of the hotel for a really long time. Off The Record is always a great joy to go, and especially to take out-of-town friends there. So I knew the beautiful Hay-Adams Room well, and of course, I know our extraordinary musicians well.

I also know our community well, because I’ve made it a point to do so. As a conductor, I believe it is my responsibility to educate the community about music. And the only way to educate the community is to know the community – they’re not all the same, of course. So, as our large Kennedy Center performances have grown in popularity, we recognized a need for having an additional format that could introduce the music and the musicians’ talent through a different lens. I was thrilled when Nicolas Béliard, Managing Director of The Hay-Adams, felt, as I did, that no other space in Washington, D.C. would be as perfect for this format as the hotel, with its rich history and its location and iconic status.  

For audiences at the Music Salons, there’s a real fascination in having the instrument so close. Many people haven’t had that experience before attending. And when they do, it’s almost like taking a magnifying glass to the large performance, for guests of the Music Salons – they see, feel and hear everything larger-than-life, just inches or feet away.

Truly, the clarinet is almost on your table! And the programming is designed not only to immerse and entertain and move guests, but also to educate them. David Jones really takes the lead in curating the series and it’s a joy to share this passion with him. Similarly to our Kennedy Center performances, we often select works and even genres that people may not be aware of having been part of the repertoire of a well-known composer or musician.

At The Hay-Adams performances, the atmosphere is so relaxed, even the audience comments, and it’s terrific. I live for the exhilaration of challenging an audience, of opening them to something. Especially here in Washington, with a highly educated population that wants to learn, but doesn’t want to be lectured. And at the Music Salons, it happens in real time, interactively and inspiringly.

It really brings to mind what we imagine having happened at the lively salons held in the 1800s at the homes of John Hay and Henry Adams. I’m so happy to be part of The Hay-Adams’ Music Salons, which, along with its long-running Author Series, are the pillars of its Celebrating the Arts program, a modern interpretation of gathering for the purpose of immersing oneself in music, literature and the power of expression.

As musicians, we’re storytellers. And as humans, we also have an innate desire to be told stories, to be swept into other people’s expression and experience, and to let our imaginations soar.

I’m honored to be a conduit for that experience.