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Some would say that Robyn and Charles Krauthammer do too much, but that's clearly not the Chevy Chase couple's perspective.

"We have made it a point in life to do things we really love … Work done in that spirit is not burdensome. It's actually enjoyable," explains Robyn Krauthammer on behalf of the duo that has found time amid impressive and non-musical professional careers to create Pro Musica Hebraica (PMH), an organization that brings lost and rarely performed works of Jewish art music to contemporary audiences.

"Through the centuries and across the globe, Jewish composers have created a rich repertoire of concert music that interweaves the sacred and the secular, folk and liturgical themes into one sophisticated artistic tradition," according to PMH's mission statement. The organization seeks to represent these composers, their descendants and those they influenced, especially Dmitrii Shostakovich, "as passionate modern artists who embrace the challenge of expressing their Jewishness through the creative medium of music."

"We both love this project deeply, and we simply find the time one way or the other, despite our obligations," says Australian-born Robyn Krauthammer, an attorney turned painter and sculptor who exhibits at the District's Foxhall Gallery. Her husband, who holds a medical degree from Harvard, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and a weekly panelist on "Inside Washington."

"Many hours are given to it [PMH] — and late into the night," Robyn Krauthammer says.

"Doing this involves absolutely everything, from finding the artists, to making bookings for their accommodation, to working with the Kennedy Center on the whole set-up of the concert, to planning the after-concert receptions with caterers," she explains. "Much like welcoming relatives to town! The details are the same — only with instruments!"

While her husband grew up in an observant Jewish family and "was well schooled in sacred text and general learning," Krauthammer converted to Judaism.

"This outside-inside view of Jewish culture probably actually gave [me] an enhanced view of the beauty of the music and how it should have a greater place in the general music canon," she concludes.

The characteristic melancholy typical of this music accurately reflects the fact that "Jewish history is inherently and repeatedly tragic," Charles Krauthammer observes. He insists, however, that PMH's focus is "very much on celebrating a living culture throughout time.

"The joy and rapture as well as the sorrow is represented magnificently in the music, something we try to capture in our concerts."

Neither Krauthammer has professional music credentials; he played piano and guitar while growing up, his "career as rhythm guitarist in a rock band … mercifully abbreviated," and she took cello and piano lessons as an adult.

Still, she says, they "both simply deeply love both music and Jewish culture, which provides the emotional and intellectual underpinning for this venture."

Credit goes to Cantor Edwin Gerber of Ohr Kodesh Synagogue in Chevy Chase for introducing the couple to the St. Petersburg school of Russian Jewish composers, initiators of the modern history of Jewish art music some 100 years ago. These young musicians integrated Hasidic melodies, Russian folksongs and synagogue chants with their teachers' styles and techniques to produce a repertoire of distinctively passionate vocal, chamber and orchestral music.

"Much of the music performed in these concerts has either never been performed before or not for a hundred years," Robyn Krauthammer says, noting that she and her husband are hearing much of it for the first time along with the PMH concert audiences since no recordings exist.

PMH's inaugural concert took place in April 2008, with guest artist Itzhak Perlman, and a third event featuring the Biava Quartet is set for Thursday, March 19, in the Kennedy Center.

Launching the organization was a formidable task, facilitated by connecting with people who understand and compliment their vision. The couple enlisted James Loeffler, then a student "at work on his thesis on just this group of composers" and now a University of Virginia professor and musician. Robyn Krauthammer calls Loeffler "the guiding intellect of the whole venture as the research director of PMH." And The Kennedy Center's President Michael Kaiser "had the vision to see that it might work as an idea for a concert series."

Finding the right musicians was not easy, either. After four years of unsuccessful attempts, Krauthammer says "we found the most wonderful champion in James Conlon, the conductor, who has a special interest in Jewish music suppressed and lost during the Nazi era." It was Maestro Conlon, now PMH's artistic advisor, who arranged through the Juilliard School for two chamber groups to perform and convinced Perlman to appear at the first concert.

For the future, the co-founders expect to expand by commissioning new work, developing educational programs and sponsoring live recordings of rare pieces.

PMH's second season will conclude with a 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 19 concert in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The Biava Quartet will perform with special guests mezzo soprano Rachel Calloway, baritone Alexander Tall and pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski. The program will feature works by Shostakovich, Achron, Zhitomirskii, Michelet and Zeitlin. Tickets are $50. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.

This column is intended as a place to tap the pulse of some of the multitude of creative people and organizations that constitute Montgomery County's professional arts community and celebrate their achievements. Your comments and suggestions are welcome; e-mail ewexler@gazette.net.