FREE
Advance Insider tickets available Friday, May 13, noon ET (space is limited)
General passes available Monday, May 16, noon ET
Ticket links to come
We strongly recommend claiming a ticket to ensure your seat. This program is expected to be at capacity.
Questions? Email [email protected]
Hirshhorn Insiders, email [email protected]

For one time only, Grammy award-winning musician and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson presents a drone-based sonic outdoor experience as part of the yearlong celebration of Lou Reed’s 80th birthday. Anderson and special guests will perform live throughout the afternoon alongside an installation of guitars from her late husband’s collection that will be curated by Reed’s former guitar technician Stewart Hurwood. Reed’s instruments are arranged with a group of amplifiers to create an enveloping drone of harmonics that shifts as the sound waves and the audience move through the space.

This performance will be presented as part of Sound Scene, an annual sound festival presented in partnership with DC Listening Lounge.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

As a Grammy Award-winning musician, performer, writer, and artist, Anderson has an international reputation as an artist who combines the traditions of the avant-garde with popular culture. Anderson’s theatrical works combine a variety of media, including performance, music, poetry, sculpture, opera, anthropological investigations, and linguistic games, to elicit emotional reactions. As a visual artist, Anderson has been shown at the Guggenheim Museum, SoHo, and extensively in Europe, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. She has also released seven albums for Warner Brothers, including Big Science, featuring the song “O Superman,” which rose to No. 2 on the British pop charts. She is currently Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.