Music Showcase Venues

The Mansion at Strathmore is one of Maryland’s most gracious homes for the arts. It is home to more intimate artistic programs presented by Strathmore in the warm and acoustically superb 100-seat Dorothy M. and Maurice C. Shapiro Music Room, the Gudelsky Gallery Suite exhibition spaces, the outdoor Gudelsky Concert Pavilion, and outdoor Sculpture Gardens.

Over the past 25 years under the visionary leadership of President & CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl, Strathmore has hosted more than 5,000 artists and hundreds of thousands of guests at its signature exhibitions, concerts, teas, educational events and outdoor festivals. High quality arts programming, designed for audiences of many tastes, served with the hospitality and warmth of a family enterprise, are the hallmarks of Strathmore. Seasonal outdoor events seek to be inclusive in their programming appeal, reaching out to people of all ages, interests and cultural heritage.

Artistic offerings presented by Strathmore in the Music Center include world-class performances by major national artists of folk, blues, pop, jazz, show tunes, and classical music. Strathmore also boasts unprecedented partnerships with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Washington Performing Arts Society, National Philharmonic, Levine School of Music, CityDance Ensemble, and Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra.

Strathmore continues its mission of nurturing art, artists, and community through creative and diverse programming of the highest quality in the Music Center at Strathmore, a 1,976-seat concert hall and education complex.

The Franklin Park Arts Center is a dream come true for Loudoun Artists and patrons. Its concept, construction and ultimate realization is a story ten years in the making, requiring the dedicated efforts of community leaders, thousands of volunteers and ultimately requiring the approval of Loudoun County voters.

In January 1997, a local theater group received permission to raise the funds necessary to convert a 19th century dairy barn located on the Franklin farm property, newly purchased by Loudoun County to become Franklin Park, into a space to hold theatrical rehearsals and productions. Just as the fundraising effort is about to begin, the barn burns to the ground- the result of local boys playing with matches inside the barn. After the fire is extinguished the only recognizable traces of the barn are its silo and a length of stone foundation wall.

Undeterred by the devastating fire, in August 1997, a group of artists and community leaders extend their vision and organize themselves into The Barns at Franklin Park, Incorporated with the dream of building Loudoun’s first dedicated performing and visual arts center on the site of the destroyed barn. To help jump-start the community effort a Design Charette’ process begins; arts organizations throughout Loudoun County provide input on the proposed Arts Center. The volunteer board of Barns at Franklin Park, Inc. begins community outreach and fundraising, featuring membership drives, special events and brick and seat sales. Original start-up funds also include the use the insurance money from the destroyed barn, approved for use by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

On Labor Day Weekend in September, 1998, The Timber Framers Guild of North America, managed by the Blue Ridge Timberwrights and thousands of volunteers raised the new barn frame in Franklin Park. The timbers came from around the country; some were recycled from dismantled bridges, the longest timbers were found in the St. Lawrence Seaway- recycled from their original use as ‘bumpers’ for logging runs decades earlier.

Over the next 6 years the project continued to grow- a solar array was added to the scope of the project, the Arts Center project was under roof with basic flooring and partitions roughed-in and the County of Loudoun approved and hired staff for the facility under the Parks Division of Loudoun County’s Department of Parks Recreation and Community Services. The staff temporarily moved into the old Round Hill Elementary School and began programming.