Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics Brings Spine-Tingling Strings to Thomas Circle
Washington has no shortage of ways to celebrate Halloween, from haunted walks to costume parties, but few are as atmospheric as a night spent listening to a string quartet play the season's most chilling music by the glow of candlelight. Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics returns to National City Christian Church this October, and it may be the most elegant way to get into the spooky spirit this year.
If you haven't yet experienced a Candlelight concert, the idea is beautifully simple. A small group of live musicians, often a string quartet, performs in a striking space transformed by hundreds of candles that cover the stage and line the room. The lights go down, the candles take over, and familiar music feels new in the intimate glow. The series has become a phenomenon in cities around the world because it strips away the formality that keeps some people away from classical concerts while keeping everything that makes live acoustic music so moving. Shows run about an hour, the programs mix classical masterpieces with pop, rock, and film music, and the setting does much of the storytelling. It's an ideal outing for a date night, a gathering of friends, or anyone curious about classical music who doesn't know where to start.
The Halloween edition may be the series at its most fun, because candlelight and creepy music were made for each other. The program moves between the great spooky works of the concert hall and the themes that have haunted movie and TV screens for decades. Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre summons skeletons dancing in a graveyard at midnight, Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain unleashes a witches' sabbath, and Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King builds to its famously frantic climax. Schubert's Der Erlkonig tells its ghostly tale of a father racing through the night, Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette will be instantly recognizable to fans of Alfred Hitchcock, and a movement from Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 adds real intensity to the evening.
Then come the screen favorites. Audiences can expect the shrieking strings of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho prelude, John Carpenter's unforgettable Halloween theme, and Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells from The Exorcist, alongside the more playful side of the season with Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice theme and This Is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Vic Mizzy's The Addams Family, the synth-driven Stranger Things theme, and Ghostbusters. The program also finds room for Michael Jackson's Thriller and, naturally, the Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Hearing these pieces arranged for strings is half the joy, as songs you know by heart reveal unexpected textures in an acoustic setting.
The music is performed by the Listeso String Quartet, and the setting adds its own character to the evening. National City Christian Church, built in 1930 and known for its striking architecture, stands prominently on Thomas Circle, and its grand interior lit only by candles creates exactly the kind of mood a haunted evening calls for.
Performances are scheduled for Friday, Oct 30 at 6:45 p.m. and 8:45 p.m., just in time for Halloween weekend. The concert runs 60 minutes. Doors open an hour before showtime and close five minutes before the performance begins, and latecomers will not be admitted, so plan to arrive early. Tickets start at $62 plus fees, with pricing that varies by seating zone, and seats within each zone are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, which is one more reason to get there early. The concert is open to ages 8 and up, and anyone under 16 must attend with an adult. The venue is ADA compliant, and group bookings of 30 or more are available.
Halloween performances of this series tend to sell quickly, and with only one date left on the calendar, now is the time to grab a seat. For an evening that's equal parts beautiful and bone-chilling, it's hard to beat a string quartet, a historic church, and a room full of flickering candles.
To see a list of all Candlelight concerts in the DC area, visit our Candlelight Concerts in DC page.