Patrice Michaels, composer/soprano/creator and daughter-in law of Justice Ginsburg, music director Kuang-Hao Huang, pianist Andrew Harley, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, and a cappella ensemble Capital Hearings give a special performance of “THE LONG VIEW: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs.” The 40-minute song cycle illuminates key aspects of Justice Ginsburg’s personal and professional life through letters, remembrances, conversations, and court opinions to reveal a life dedicated to justice and convey the important relationship between the Supreme Court and the Constitution. Following the performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joins National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen to discuss his new book, Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty and Law—an informal portrait of the Justice through an extraordinary series of conversations, starting in the 1990s and continuing to today. They also reflect on the performance that preceded the discussion.
The National Constitution Center gratefully acknowledges the Bernstein Family Foundation for its generous support of our education programs in Washington D.C. This program is made possible in part through support from the John Templeton Foundation.
Participants
Musical Performance
- Patrice Michaels is a composer, creator, and soprano. Her singing has been featured on more than 25 albums on Decca, Neos, Albany and Amadis labels, plus 14 releases for Cedille Records. Her compositions range from incidental music for Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and a one-act opera based on her own libretto of Euripides' The Trojan Women to A Song for Harmonica. A former professor of music at Lawrence University's Conservatory of Music, Michaels now serves as director of vocal studies at the University of Chicago.
- Kuang-Hao Huang is a highly sought-after collaborative pianist whose performances have taken him throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He has performed in New York City’s Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Merkin Hall; in Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center; and at every major venue in the Chicago area, including the Harris Theatre and Symphony Center. He serves on the faculties of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and Concordia University-Chicago.
- Andrew Harley is an English pianist specializing in instrumental chamber music and song literature. He has held positions at the University of California Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, the University of California Santa Barbara. the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and The Juilliard School. Harley currently serves as Director of Piano Accompanying and Chamber Music Degree Programs at the Eastman School of Music.
- Inscape Chamber Orchestra is a critically acclaimed, Grammy nominated performing ensemble in the Washington, DC region and beyond. Inscape members regularly perform with the National, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Virginia, Richmond, and Delaware symphonies, the Washington Opera Orchestra, and are members of the premiere Washington service bands. Inscape regularly performs at the National Gallery of Art, Strathmore Music Center, Kennedy Center and other venues.
- The Capital Hearings is an a cappella ensemble based in the Washington, D.C. region. Performance highlights include concerts at the Kennedy Center, Strathmore, Atlas Performing Arts Center, and Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, as well as appearances in prominent Washington venues like the Smithsonian American History Museum, National Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Phillips Collection, U.S. Botanic Garden, and on Capitol Hill.
Conversation
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963–1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972–1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977–1978. In 1971, she was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973–1980, and on the National Board of Directors from 1974–1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat August 10, 1993.
- Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
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