Caramoor

Sean Mason Quintet
2023-03-24 20:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York)
Join us in welcoming Jazz at Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Sean Mason leading his own ensemble at Caramoor. A sought-after sideman, he has performed and toured with jazz legends including Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, and Herlin Riley, among many others, and is noted for his ability to switch fluently between many different styles of music. Mason will be joined by the stellar members of his quintet in performances of his original music.

ArtistsSean Mason, pianist/bandleaderTony Glausi, trumpetDomo Branch, drumsCorentin Le Hir, bassChristopher McBride, alto sax

About Sean Mason

Sean Mason is a jazz pianist and composer based in New York City, quickly emerging as one of the premier talents of his generation. Born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Mason took to the piano at age 13, teaching himself to play by ear the music of his upbringing: gospel, R&B, and soul, which quickly evolved into a highly original jazz style.

As a bandleader, Mason leads two groups: the Sean Mason Trio based in Charlotte, and the Sean Mason Quintet based in New York. Both groups play Mason’s original music, which has been described as highly melodic, swinging, gospel jazz. Folk music, stride piano, and the style of Mason’s early hero, Ray Charles, are the main ingredients in a stew that is greater than the sum of its parts.

When studying at the University Of North Carolina-Greensboro, Mason met jazz legend Branford Marsalis, who was immediately taken with the young student and recommended he apply to the Juilliard School. Upon arrival in New York, Mason hit the ground running, quickly securing residencies for his groups at some of the more prestigious jazz clubs such as Smoke Jazz Club and Smalls Jazz Club, as well as sideman work with such luminaries as Wynton Marsalis, Catherine Russell, Herlin Riley, Joel Ross, Charles Turner, Russell Hall, and more (al while completing his Juilliard studies).

A major stepping stone occurred when NPR’s influential multimedia show Jazz Night In America spotlighted Mason, among five musicians, on its “Youngbloods” series. Mason was also featured on Branford Marsalis’ film score to the highly acclaimed Netflix production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Mason’s debut record will be released in early 2023 on Blue Engine Records, the label of Jazz At Lincoln Center. Produced by Branford Marsalis,the album is composed of original compositions for the Sean Mason Quintet, featuring a lineup of young all-stars: Tony Galusi (trumpet), Chris Lewis (tenor saxophone), Felix Moseholm (bass), Domo Branch (drums), and Mason leading at the piano. Early reviews cite the record’s impressive display of maturity from such burgeoning talents. As Mason continues touring the world as a bandleader and sideman, while fitting in near-constant session work, the future for him is bright.

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Ivalas Quartet
2023-04-16 15:00 - 17:00
The Ivalas Quartet, Caramoor’s 2022 – 23 Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence, has been changing the face of classical music through its dedication to the celebration of diverse voices. Following a performance of George Walker’s Lyric for Strings at Carnegie Hall in January of 2020, Ivalas worked in collaboration with Walker’s son to program his String Quartet No. 1. For its second performance this season, the Quartet returns to the Music Room for a performance featuring Walker’s quartet alongside works by Webern and Brahms.

Read more about the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence program and its past alumni.

Program

George Walker: String Quartet No. 1Anton Webern: String QuartetJohannes Brahms: String Quartet in C Minor. Op. 51, No. 1

About the Ivalas Quartet

Composed of violinists Reuben Kebede and Tiani Butts, violist Aimée McAnulty, and cellist Pedro Sánchez, the Ivalas Quartet has been changing the face of classical music since its inception at the University of Michigan in 2017. Dedicated to the celebration of BIPOC voices, Ivalas seeks to disrupt and enhance the classical music world by continuously spotlighting past and present BIPOC composers such as Jessie Montgomery, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Eleanor Alberga.

The Ivalas Quartet had the pleasure of performing George Walker’s Lyric for Strings at Carnegie Hall in January of 2020. Later that year, they worked in collaboration with Walker’s son to program his String Quartet No. 1 with Friends of Chamber Music Denver and the Colorado Music Festival. In 2021, they created the first recording of Carlos Simon’s Warmth From Other Suns for string quartet under Lara Downes’ digital label Rising Sun Music.

Currently, The Ivalas Quartet is the Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School in New York City where they study under the Juilliard String Quartet. They were previously in residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet.

In addition to serving as Caramoor’s 2022 – 23 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, this season Ivalas will appear at the Austin Chamber Music Center, Newport Classical in Rhode Island, CU Presents Takács Series, Schneider Concerts in NY, and the MacPhail Center for Music in MN.

The members of the Ivalas Quartet have a shared dedication to their roles as educators. Through the Sphinx Organization, Ivalas has presented educational programming in the Metro Detroit area, with an emphasis on community engagement in schools with Black and Latinx communities. In Colorado, they developed a partnership with El Sistema Colorado and were a part of the Aspen Music Festival Musical Connections program. In their new home of New York City, they are excited to be working with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as part of their Chamber Music Beginnings program. Ivalas has also nurtured students from the early stages of their musical journey to the collegiate level in many other educational settings.

To learn more about the Ivalas Quartet, please visit their website.

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Takács Quartet
2023-04-23 15:00 - 17:00
The world-renowned Takács Quartet, now in their 48th season, return to the Music Room. The acclaimed Quartet brings a program including Haydn, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, whose works have recently begun to move out of her brother Felix’s shadow, and Schubert’s final quartet, in G Major.

Program

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in F Major, H. III:82Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel: String Quartet in E-flat MajorFranz Schubert: String Quartet in G Major, D. 887

About the Artists

The world-renowned Takács Quartet began its 48th season with a tour of Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, and the release of two new CDs for Hyperion Records. A disc of Haydn’s opp. 42, 77, and 103 is followed by the first recording of an extraordinary new work written for the Takács by Stephen Hough, Les Six Rencontres, presented with quartets by Ravel and Dutilleux. As Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Takács performs four concerts there and continues its fruitful partnership with pianist Jeremy Denk, performing on several North American series.

Throughout the season, the ensemble will play at prestigious European venues including the Edinburgh and Schwetzingen Festivals, Madrid’s Auditorio de Música, Bilbao’s Philharmonic Society, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Bath Mozartfest. The group’s North American engagements include concerts in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Seattle. The Takács Quartet is known for its innovative programming. In 2021 – 22, the ensemble partnered with bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro to premiere new works by Clarice Assad and Bryce Dessner, commissioned by Music Accord. In 2014 the Takács performed a program inspired by Philip Roth’s novel Everyman with Meryl Streep at Princeton University, and again at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. They first performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. They have toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, and played regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas.

The Takács records for Hyperion Records, recently winning awards for their recordings of string quartets by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, and — with pianist Garrick Ohlsson — piano quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar. Other releases for Hyperion feature works by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, Debussy, and Britten, as well as piano quintets by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms and Dvorák (with Lawrence Power). For their CDs on the Decca/London label, the Quartet has won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. The group received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982.

To learn more about the Takács Quartet, please visit their website.

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Rachel Podger, violin
2023-04-30 15:00 - 17:00
“Rachel Podger, the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin,” (The Times) has established herself as a leading interpreter of Baroque and Classical music. Podger was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in October 2015, Gramophone Artist of the Year 2018, and Ambassador for REMA’s Early Music Day 2020. She performs an all-Bach solo program in the perfect setting for it, Caramoor’s Music Room.

Program

J.S. Bach: Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001J.S. Bach: Cello Suite No. 3 in G major, BWV 1009J.S. Bach: Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002

About Rachel Podger

“Rachel Podger, the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin,” (The Times) has established herself as a leading interpreter of the Baroque and Classical. She was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in October 2015, Gramophone Artist of the Year 2018, and the Ambassador for REMA’s Early Music Day 2020. A creative programmer, Podger is the founder and Artistic Director of Brecon Baroque Festival and her ensemble Brecon Baroque. She is Patron for The Continuo Foundation and an Ambassador for the Learned Society of Wales.

Following her residency at the renowned Wigmore Hall, Podger continues to widen the breadth of her artistry collaborating with orchestras and ensembles worldwide including most recently the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and Philharmonia Baroque. Upcoming engagements include Tafelmusik, Salamanca Baroque, Luthers Bach Ensemble, Handel and Haydn Society, Montana Baroque, Tesserae Baroque, Library of Congress, and a residency in 2023-24. Alongside these, as a director and soloist, Podger has worked with many other collaborators including VOCES8, Robert Hollingworth & I Fagiolini, Robert Levin, Jordon Savall, Christopher Glynn, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Masaaki Suzuki, Armonico Consort, Orchestra of the Age Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, San Francisco Early Music, Holland Baroque Society, and Oregon Bach Festival.

Upcoming recording releases on Channel Classics include CPE Bach with Kristian Bezuidenhout and The Goldberg Variations Re-imagined, a new arrangement by Chad Kelly with Brecon Baroque. Recent releases include Tutta Sola, solo repertoire featuring JS Bach, Johann Paul von Westhoff, Johan Helmich Roman, Geminiani and Vilsmayr, and with Christopher Glynn the world premiere of three previously unfinished Mozart sonatas which were completed by Royal Academy of Music Professor Timothy Jones and Beethoven Sonatas 1, 5, and 10. Past releases include Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni with Brecon Baroque and Bach Cello Suites transposed for the violin.

A dedicated educator, Podger holds the Micaela Comberti Chair for Baroque Violin (founded in 2008) at the Royal Academy of Music and the Jane Hodge Foundation International Chair in Baroque Violin at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has a relationship with The Juilliard School in New York where she visits regularly. Rachel Podger is managed worldwide by Percius.

To learn more about Rachel Podger, please visit her website.

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
2023-05-06 20:00 - 20:30
Joyous, heartfelt, and wonderfully clever, George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a group of all-singing, all-strumming ukulele players who have become world-famous for their unexpected interpretations of film scores and rock ‘n’ roll. The seven-person ensemble sits in a chamber group format dressed in formal evening wear and presents programs of “the pompous and the trivial, the moving, and the amusing” (The Guardian).

This performance will include one 20-minute intermission.

Artists

Peter Brooke Turner, soprano ukelele Chris Walker, concert ukelele Ben Rouse, tenor ukelele Ewan Wardrop, baritone ukeleleLeisa Rea, soprano ukelele Laura Currie, concert ukelele Dominic Howles, bass ukelele

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Yasmin Williams, guitar
2023-05-12 20:00 - 20:30
Acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams brings her unorthodox, modern style of playing to Caramoor for a solo show in the Music Room. Using various techniques including alternate tunings, percussive hits, and lap tapping, her “radiant sound and adventitious origins have made her a key figure in a diverse dawn for the solo guitar” (The New York Times).

About Yasmin Williams

Based in Alexandria, VA, Yasmin Williams is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist with an unorthodox, modern style of playing. She utilizes various techniques including alternate tunings, percussive hits, and lap tapping in her music to great effect. Her “radiant sound and adventitious origins have made her a key figure in a diverse dawn for the solo guitar” (The New York Times). Williams’s music has been described as rich, harmonious, and “in a lot of ways, the joy and possibility she brings to the guitar reminds me more of Eddie Van Halen than any of the other fingerstyle guitarists to whom she’s compared” (NPR Music).

She grew up in northern Virginia where various genres of music from smooth jazz to hip-hop were played in her household. She was introduced to the guitar after playing the video game Guitar Hero 2 and became interested in playing the guitar in 2009. She begged her parents to buy her a real electric guitar and once she received her first guitar and amplifier, she taught herself how to play the guitar by ear. After a few years of playing the electric guitar, she taught herself how to play the bass guitar, 12 string guitar, and classical guitar before eventually deciding to switch her focus to the acoustic guitar because of the instrument’s versatility. While in high school, she released her first EP Serendipity in 2012, which she recorded and mixed herself.

She graduated from New York University with a BM in Music Theory and Composition in December 2017. Her first album, Unwind, was released on May 4, 2018. It charted highly on several Amazon and iTunes charts including top paid albums, including charting at #7 on Amazon’s top paid albums and #1 on iTunes‘s Folk chart, and charted at #15 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. Her latest album, Urban Driftwood, was released on January 29, 2021 and has received critical acclaim from numerous major publications including The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, NPR Music, The Fader, Wallstreet Journal, AllMusic, Paste Magazine, No Depression, and several other outlets.

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Afternoon Tea
2023-05-19 14:00 - 15:30
Spend time relaxing with friends and enjoying a formal tea service in the grand setting of the Rosen House Music Room, including a variety of tea sandwiches, scones with crème fraiche and preserves, delicious desserts, and a variety of fragrant teas — all served on exquisite vintage china.

Please note that our Afternoon Teas are now held indoors in the Music Room.

Tickets include access to select rooms of the Rosen House beginning at 1:00pm. Private, docent-guided tours of the whole house begin at 3:00 pm and are available by appointment only. Reserve your private tour by calling the Box Office at 914.232.1252. Tours fill up quickly so be sure to reserve in advance. Private tours are $15 for adults. Members and children under the age of 18 are FREE.

Menu

Adult Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on a Mini Brioche Bun

Roasted Tomato, Ricotta, and Avocado on Crostini Toast

Cured Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Children’s Menu (suitable for ages 4–12)

Tea Sandwiches

Roast Beef and Cheddar on Wheat

Ham and Swiss on Rye

Turkey and American Cheese on Rye

Mozzarella and Tomato on Mini Brioche Buns

Peanut Butter and Jelly on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Crème Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Dietary Restrictions: With advance notice at the time of booking, we are able to accommodate the following dietary restrictions: vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free. Please let us know if you have any severe allergies and we will do our best to accommodate. Please note, all foods are prepared off-site therefore we cannot provide day-of requests.

Vegetarian Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Crostini Toasts

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Fresh Mozzarella, Pesto, and Arugula on Whole Grain Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread Curried

Vegetarian “Chicken” Salad and Arugula on Mini Brioche Bun

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Vegan Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Vegan “Chicken Salad” and Arugula on Whole Wheat Bread

Vegan Mozzarella, Tomato, and Arugula with Balsamic Vinaigrette on Crostini Toast

*uses nut-based cheese substitutes

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Vegan Dessert Bites

Gluten-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Gluten Free Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Gluten-Free Bread

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Gluten Free Bread

Smoked Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Gluten Free Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese, on Gluten Free Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

An Assortment of Gluten Free Desserts

Dairy-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Dairy Free Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Smoked Salmon, Vegan Cream Cheese, Capers, Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, Dairy Free Cheddar Cheese, Dairy Free White Bread

*Uses Nut-Based Cheeses

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Dairy Free Dessert Bites

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

An Evening of Wine
2023-05-20 18:00 - 19:00
This annual event is our most decadent benefit of the year. It raises funds that support Caramoor’s education programs, some of which are being piloted now after having been recently reimagined. In all that we do to serve our youth and community, we cultivate the next generation of great performers and listeners. In that same vein, we appreciate what Chez Panisse has done for food education and access, and we are grateful to partner with them for this special event. We hope you’ll join us.

Enjoy champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and an intimate musical performance with Aoife O’Donovan. This year’s Wine Dinner will feature a menu created by chef Jennifer Sherman of Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, a pioneering restaurant in organic and sustainable farm-to-table cuisine. Sherman is also the Operations Director of the Edible Schoolyard Project.

Schedule /6:00pm / Cocktails7:00pm / Musical Performance, Aoife O’Donovan8:00pm / Dinner, Chez Panisse

Seating is Limited / Cocktail Attire

The Evening’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Wines // 1952 & 1955 Barolo Riserva Monfortino Speciale – 12.9L/ 2005 & 2006 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut – 6Land more!

Benefit Co-ChairsJim Attwood & Peter Kend

About Jennifer Sherman
Jennifer grew up in Berkeley and graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degree in the History of Art. She went on to attend the California Culinary Academy and Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. She cooked at Chez Panisse, both in the Café and Restaurant, for most of the 1990s until she left to raise her daughter, Catherine. She returned in 2008 to become General Manager. Jennifer is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier as well as Chef in Residence at The Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano. In July 2017 she assumed the additional role of Chef at Chez Panisse, cooking twice weekly in the downstairs restaurant while maintaining her position as General Manager.

About Aoife O’Donovan

GRAMMY Award-winning artist Aoife O’Donovan operates in a thrilling musical world beyond genre.

Deemed “a vocalist of unerring instinct” by The New York Times, she has released three critically-acclaimed and boundary-blurring solo albums including her most recent record, 2022’s boldly orchestrated and literarily crafted Age Of Apathy. Written by O’Donovan and recorded with acclaimed producer Joe Henry, Age Of Apathy is “stunning” (Rolling Stone) and “taps into the propulsion of prime Joni Mitchell” (Pitchfork).

Age of Apathy received three nominations at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards including one for Best Folk Album. The song “B61” from the album was Folk Alliance International’s 2022 Song of the Year.

A savvy and generous collaborator, Aoife is one third of the group I’m With Her with bandmates Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz. The trio’s debut album, See You Around, was hailed as “willfully open-hearted” by NPR Music. I’m With Her earned an Americana Music Association Award in 2019 for Duo/Group of the Year, and a GRAMMY Award in 2020 for Best American Roots Song. O’Donovan spent the preceding decade as co-founder and front woman of the string band, Crooked Still and is the featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo Sessions — the group with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. She has appeared as a featured vocalist with over a dozen symphonies including the National Symphony Orchestra, written for Alison Krauss, performed with jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas, and spent a decade as a regular contributor to the radio variety shows “Live From Here” and “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Caramoor Center for the Music and the Arts is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. Payment for tickets may not be made through a donor-advised fund. If you anticipate payment by a private foundation, please contact your legal advisor. Tickets purchased do not count toward membership. No refunds. Contributions are tax-deductible as provided by law.

Elena Moon Park and Friends
2023-05-21 15:00 - 16:00
Join us on Friends Field for a voyage to East Asia and around the globe as multi-instrumentalist Elena Moon Park and guests perform reimagined children’s music, folk songs, and original tunes in a variety of languages. Expect to sing, dance, and clap along to northern Japanese sea shanties, Tibetan jump rope rhymes, Taiwanese train songs, lullabies in English, and many other unique songs.

Elena Moon Park, vocals, jarana, violinAkiko Hiroshima, vocalsJohn Foti, accordion, vocalsYoshi Waki, upright bassNicole Patrick, drums

About Elena Moon Park

Elena Moon Park is a musician and cultural arts producer living in Brooklyn, NY. She collaborates with all kinds of artists & performs around NYC and the globe, specializing in music for all-ages audiences and featuring reimagined folk and children’s music from East and Southeast Asia. She is also a co-director of the Brooklyn-based arts organization Found Sound Nation, which uses collaborative music creation to connect people across cultural divides, including the global music exchange program OneBeat, bringing together artists from around the globe for the co-creation of original works and the incubation of civically-engaged music and art projects.

Concessions Menu
We are gearing up for our summer season and will be serving up some of our favorite treats along with new menu items to try for this performance from 1:00pm-4:30pm. Bring an appetite and share your thoughts with us on what you try!

MAINS & SIDES

Fire Grilled Burger (also available as a kids meal)Creole Spiced Chicken SandwichChicken Fingers Kids MealVegetarian MuffulettaSummer Blossom Bowl (vegan option)Tater TotsChips Cappuccino Cookies

BEVERAGES

Hand Squeezed LemonadeFreshly Brewed Mint Iced TeaSpare Tonics and La Croix Sparkling WaterCutwater Spirits Canned CocktailsCaptain Lawrence, Soul Brewery, and Sloop Canned Beer VarietalsHudson North Cider

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Afternoon Tea
2023-05-26 14:00 - 15:30
Spend time relaxing with friends and enjoying a formal tea service in the grand setting of the Rosen House Music Room, including a variety of tea sandwiches, scones with crème fraiche and preserves, delicious desserts, and a variety of fragrant teas — all served on exquisite vintage china.

Please note that our Afternoon Teas are now held indoors in the Music Room.

Tickets include access to select rooms of the Rosen House beginning at 1:00pm. Private, docent-guided tours of the whole house begin at 3:00 pm and are available by appointment only. Reserve your private tour by calling the Box Office at 914.232.1252. Tours fill up quickly so be sure to reserve in advance. Private tours are $15 for adults. Members and children under the age of 18 are FREE.

Adult Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on a Mini Brioche Bun

Roasted Tomato, Ricotta, and Avocado on Crostini Toast

Cured Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Children’s Menu (suitable for ages 4-12)

Tea Sandwiches

Roast Beef and Cheddar on Wheat

Ham and Swiss on Rye

Turkey and American Cheese on Rye

Mozzarella and Tomato on Mini Brioche Buns

Peanut Butter and Jelly on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Crème Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Dietary Restrictions: With advance notice at the time of booking, we are able to accommodate the following dietary restrictions: vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free. Please let us know if you have any severe allergies and we will do our best to accommodate. Please note, all foods are prepared off-site therefore we cannot provide day-of requests.

Vegetarian Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Crostini Toasts

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Fresh Mozzarella, Pesto, and Arugula on Whole Grain Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread Curried

Vegetarian “Chicken” Salad and Arugula on Mini Brioche Bun

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Vegan Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Vegan “Chicken Salad” and Arugula on Whole Wheat Bread

Vegan Mozzarella, Tomato, and Arugula with Balsamic Vinaigrette on Crostini Toast

*uses nut-based cheese substitutes

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Vegan Dessert Bites

Gluten-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Gluten Free Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Gluten-Free Bread

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Gluten Free Bread

Smoked Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Gluten Free Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese, on Gluten Free Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

An Assortment of Gluten Free Desserts

Dairy-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Dairy Free Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Smoked Salmon, Vegan Cream Cheese, Capers, Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, Dairy Free Cheddar Cheese, Dairy Free White Bread

*Uses Nut-Based Cheeses

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Dairy Free Dessert Bites

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Afternoon Tea
2023-06-02 14:00 - 15:30
Spend time relaxing with friends and enjoying a formal tea service in the grand setting of the Rosen House Music Room, including a variety of tea sandwiches, scones with crème fraiche and preserves, delicious desserts, and a variety of fragrant teas — all served on exquisite vintage china.

Please note that our Afternoon Teas are now held indoors in the Music Room.

Tickets include access to select rooms of the Rosen House beginning at 1:00pm. Private, docent-guided tours of the whole house begin at 3:00 pm and are available by appointment only. Reserve your private tour by calling the Box Office at 914.232.1252. Tours fill up quickly so be sure to reserve in advance. Private tours are $15 for adults. Members and children under the age of 18 are FREE.

Menu

Adult Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on a Mini Brioche Bun

Roasted Tomato, Ricotta, and Avocado on Crostini Toast

Cured Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Children’s Menu (suitable for ages 4-12)

Tea Sandwiches

Roast Beef and Cheddar on Wheat

Ham and Swiss on Rye

Turkey and American Cheese on Rye

Mozzarella and Tomato on Mini Brioche Buns

Peanut Butter and Jelly on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Crème Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Dietary Restrictions: With advance notice at the time of booking, we are able to accommodate the following dietary restrictions: vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free. Please let us know if you have any severe allergies and we will do our best to accommodate. Please note, all foods are prepared off-site therefore we cannot provide day-of requests.

Vegetarian Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Crostini Toasts

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Fresh Mozzarella, Pesto, and Arugula on Whole Grain Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread Curried

Vegetarian “Chicken” Salad and Arugula on Mini Brioche Bun

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Vegan Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Vegan “Chicken Salad” and Arugula on Whole Wheat Bread

Vegan Mozzarella, Tomato, and Arugula with Balsamic Vinaigrette on Crostini Toast

*uses nut-based cheese substitutes

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Vegan Dessert Bites

Gluten-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Gluten Free Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Gluten-Free Bread

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Gluten Free Bread

Smoked Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Gluten Free Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese, on Gluten Free Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

An Assortment of Gluten Free Desserts

Dairy-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Dairy Free Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Smoked Salmon, Vegan Cream Cheese, Capers, Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, Dairy Free Cheddar Cheese, Dairy Free White Bread

*Uses Nut-Based Cheeses

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Dairy Free Dessert Bites

Health & Safety

We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Soundscapes
2023-06-04 12:00 - 17:00
Our grounds are open! Open your ears and discover a world of fascinating sounds through our Sonic Innovations exhibition and live performances. Thereminist Dorit Chrysler performs and leads workshops on the world’s oldest electronic instrument. Jonny Allen interprets Iannis Xenakis’ multi-percussion piece Rebonds, as well as plays and jogs between nine suspended bells in excerpts of Tom Johnson’s Nine Bells. Be enthralled as pianist Conor Hanick “prepares” a grand piano by inserting bolts, screws, bits of rubber, and other items between the strings for John Cage’s complete Sonatas and Interludes. Meet the sound artists while you explore our innovative sound art collection and enjoy a deep sensory experience for the whole family.

This event is FREE. / This event takes place in multiple different venues on our grounds, and most do not have seating available. If desired, you may bring your own seating.

Schedule

12:15pm / Welcome (Friends Field)

12:20pm / Dorit Chrysler: Theremin Demonstration & Performance (Friends Field)

12:30–1:30 pm / Meet the sound artists! The artists can be found near their respective works during this time.

1:00pm / John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Part 1) Performed by pianist Conor Hanick (Spanish Courtyard)

1:30pm–3:30pm / Theremin Workshop Learn to draw out the mysterious and haunting sounds of the oldest electric instrument in existence. Bring only your hands and the music will follow. (Garden Courtyard)

1:45pm / Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds APerformed by Percussionist Jonny Allen (Friends Field)

2:00pm / John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Part 2) Performed by pianist Conor Hanick(Spanish Courtyard)

2:20pm / Tom Johnson: First Bell Performed by Percussionist Jonny Allen (Near in”C”)

2:30pm / Theremin Performance by Dorit Chrysler (Friends Field)

2:30–3:30 pm / Meet the sound artists! The artists can be found near their respective works during this time.

3:00pm / John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Part 3)Performed by pianist Conor Hanick(Spanish Courtyard)

3:15pm / Tom Johnson: Second Bell Performed by Percussionist Jonny Allen (Near in”C”)

3:30pm / John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Part 4) Performed by pianist Conor Hanick(Spanish Courtyard)

3:45pm / Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds B Performed by Percussionist Jonny Allen (Friends Field)

Performances by:

Jonny Allen, percussionConor Hanick, pianoDorit Chrysler, theremin

Sound Artists

Trimpin, Mendi & Keith Obadike, Walter Kitundu, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Annea Lockwood & Bob Bielecki, Taylor Deupree, and Liz Phillips

learn more about the 2023 sonic innovations pieces

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Sonic Innovations is made possible, in part, thanks to generous support from the following donors: Andree Wildenstein Dormeuil & Roger Dormeuil Foundation; Charles A. Frueauff Foundation; The Marc Haas Foundation; and S & L Marx Foundation.

Afternoon Tea
2023-06-09 13:00 - 14:30, 2023-06-23 13:00 - 14:30, 2023-06-25 13:00 - 14:30, 2023-06-30 13:00 - 14:30, 2023-07-02 13:00 - 14:30
Afternoon Tea was one of the English traditions Lucie Rosen, founder of Caramoor, enjoyed during her time living in England in the early 1910s. She kept up the practice of inviting friends and guests to tea for many years, using the time for conversation and for planning concerts and other social events.

Tea is served in the Music Room, a unique opportunity for you to relax with friends and family in a breathtaking historic setting, featuring a large portrait of Lucie herself. The service includes a variety of tea sandwiches, scones with créme fraiche and preserves, delicious desserts, and a selection of fragrant teas.

Self-Guided Rosen House Tours (included with ticket) / Following the tea, you will also have a chance to visit select rooms of the Rosen House starting at 2:00pm, until 3:30pm. The rooms showcase fine examples of decorative arts from Europe and China including jade, porcelain, and textiles that the Rosens admired and collected.

Private, Docent-Guided Rosen House Tours (not included with ticket) / Private tours are available at 10:00am, 11:00am, and 12:00pm, and are available by appointment only; they tend to fill up quickly, so be sure to book in advance by calling the Box Office at 914.232.1252. Private tours are $15 for adults, and are free for Members and children under the age of 18.

Menu

Adult Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on a Mini Brioche Bun

Roasted Tomato, Ricotta, and Avocado on Crostini Toast

Cured Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Children’s Menu (suitable for ages 4–12)

Tea Sandwiches

Roast Beef and Cheddar on Wheat

Ham and Swiss on Rye

Turkey and American Cheese on Rye

Mozzarella and Tomato on Mini Brioche Buns

Peanut Butter and Jelly on White Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Crème Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Dietary Restrictions: With advance notice at the time of booking, we are able to accommodate the following dietary restrictions: vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free. Please let us know if you have any severe allergies and we will do our best to accommodate. Please note, all foods are prepared off-site therefore we cannot provide day-of requests.

Vegetarian Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Crostini Toasts

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Fresh Mozzarella, Pesto, and Arugula on Whole Grain Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread Curried

Vegetarian “Chicken” Salad and Arugula on Mini Brioche Bun

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry

Apricot Scone with Creme Fraiche and Jam

Lemon Bar

Linzer Cookie

Vegan Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Hummus and Roasted Veggies on Rye Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Vegan “Chicken Salad” and Arugula on Whole Wheat Bread

Vegan Mozzarella, Tomato, and Arugula with Balsamic Vinaigrette on Crostini Toast

*uses nut-based cheese substitutes

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Vegan Dessert Bites

Gluten-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Roasted Tomato, Avocado, and Ricotta on Gluten Free Bread

Cucumber and Mint Cream Cheese on Gluten-Free Bread

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Gluten Free Bread

Smoked Salmon, Chive Cream Cheese, and Capers on Gluten Free Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, and Cheddar Cheese, on Gluten Free Bread

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

An Assortment of Gluten Free Desserts

Dairy-Free Menu

Tea Sandwiches

Curried Chicken Salad and Arugula on Dairy Free Bread

Avocado, Roasted Tomato, and “Ricotta” on Crostini Toast

Smoked Salmon, Vegan Cream Cheese, Capers, Rye Bread

Cucumber and Mint Vegan Cream Cheese on Black Bread

Roast Beef, Onion Jam, Dairy Free Cheddar Cheese, Dairy Free White Bread

*Uses Nut-Based Cheeses

Teas

Ceylon Waltz Black Tea

Earl Grey Moonlight Sonata Black Tea

Raspberry-Pomegranate Iced Tea

Desserts

Dark Chocolate Covered Apricot and an Assortment of Dairy Free Dessert Bites

Health & SafetyWe’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click below for up-to-date health and safety policies as well as information on how we’re playing our part.

Learn more

Opening Night Gala Benefit
2023-06-17 17:00 - 18:00
Join us to launch Caramoor’s 2023 Summer Season with our celebratory Gala Benefit Dinner!

Show your enthusiasm for Caramoor and enjoy what makes it unique: exceptional live music with an equally exceptional culinary experience, all in our stunning gardens and grounds. After a pre-performance cocktail party, you’ll make your way into the Venetian Theater for an Opening Night Concert featuring the unparalleled Broadway and operatic sensation Audra McDonald. With Great American Songbook melodies still cascading through your ears, you’ll continue on to a seasonally-selected dinner paired with fine wines and dessert.

On this special night, we celebrate Peter and Kate Kend for their support and committed service. Caramoor’s current vice chairman, Peter has served on our Board of Trustees for over 15 years. Through their dedication and passion, Peter and Kate have built a Caramoor community around them to ensure that music and the arts are available to everyone.

Individual and table options are available. A portion of each ticket is tax deductible.

For tickets or additional details, contact events@caramoor.org or call 914.232.1492

Opening Night Concert: Audra McDonald
2023-06-17 19:00 - 19:30
Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award–winning singer and actor Audra McDonald launches Caramoor’s 2023 Summer Season in a dazzling performance of beloved classics from the Great American Songbook. Blessed with a luminous soprano and an incomparable gift for dramatic truth-telling, McDonald is one of the most adored singers of her generation and perhaps the most astounding performer of our lifetimes — a once-in-a-century artist with a miraculously expressive and lyric voice.

Artists

Audra McDonald, vocalist Andy Einhorn, Music DirectorJeremy Jordan, pianoGene Lewin, drumsMark Vanderpoel, bassOrchestra of St. Luke’s

“Talent this manifold is too miraculous to deconstruct, but there is at the heart of McDonald’s art a moral radiance, a desire to align beauty with truth and justice.” — Los Angeles Times

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

Learn More About the Artists

Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry as both a singer and an actor. The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy, in 2015 she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and received a National Medal of Arts — America’s highest honor for achievement in the field — from President Barack Obama. In addition to her Tony-winning performances in Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill — the role that also served as the vehicle for her Olivier Award-nominated 2017 debut in London’s West End — she has appeared on Broadway in The Secret Garden; Marie Christine (Tony nomination); Henry IV; 110 in the Shade (Tony nomination); Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed; and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Tony nomination). She currently stars as Suzanne Alexander in Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders at the James Earl Jones Theatre.

On television, she was seen by millions as the Mother Abbess in NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! and played Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC’s Private Practice. She won an Emmy Award for her role as host of PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center and has received nominations for Wit, A Raisin in the Sun, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Having first appeared on CBS’s The Good Wife, she plays Liz Reddick in The Good Fight on Paramount+ and Dorothy Scott in Julian Fellowes’ historical drama The Gilded Age on HBO and HBO Max. On film, she has appeared in Seven Servants, The Object of My Affection, Cradle Will Rock, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, the movie-musical Hello Again, and MGM’s Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect.

A Juilliard-trained soprano, her opera credits include La voix humaine and Send at Houston Grand Opera, and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at Los Angeles Opera, where the resulting recording earned her two Grammy Awards. McDonald has issued five solo albums on the Nonesuch label as well as Sing Happy with the New York Philharmonic on Decca Gold. A founding member of Black Theatre United, board member of Covenant House International, and prominent advocate for LGBTQAI+ rights, her favorite roles are those performed offstage, as an activist, wife to actor Will Swenson, and mother.

To learn more about Audra McDonald, please visit her website (audramcdonald.com).

Andy Einhorn

Leading Broadway music director and conductor Andy Einhorn most recently served as the music supervisor and musical director for the Broadway productions of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler, and Carousel starring Renée Fleming, both of which were nominated for a Grammy for Original Broadway Cast Recording, Einhorn’s previous Broadway music directing and conducting credits include Holiday Inn, Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Brief Encounter, and Sondheim on Sondheim. Other Broadway work includes Evita and The Light in the Piazza.

Since 2011, Einhorn has served as music director and pianist for six-time Tony Award winner, Audra McDonald, performing with her at such prestigious orchestras and venues including The New York Philharmonic, Boston Pops at Tanglewood, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a series of recorded concerts with Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. He most recently made his debut at New York City Center. They have recorded two albums together: Sing Happy: Live with the New York Philharmonic and Go Back Home.

He served as the music director for HBO’s Peabody Award-winning documentary Six by Sondheim and music supervisor for Great Performances Peabody Award-winning special Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy on PBS. In 2019, Einhorn conducted Bette Midler and Marc Shaiman at the 2019 Academy Awards. He also music supervised and appeared on camera for the Emmy award-winning performance of Eat Sh*t Bob for HBO’s Last Week Tonight starring John Oliver.

Einhorn’s upcoming film and television projects include Apple Plus’ Extrapolations and Cabrini, produced by Jonathan Sanger. He is a guest faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and is a regular music director and pianist for the 92nd St Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists series.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL), Caramoor’s orchestra-in-residence, grew from a group of virtuoso musicians performing chamber music concerts at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields in 1974. Regular seasons see OSL perform in diverse musical genres at New York’s major concert venues, drawing on an expanded roster for large-scale works, and collaborating with artists ranging from Joshua Bell and Renée Fleming to Bono and Metallica. The orchestra has commissioned more than 50 new works and has given more than 175 world, U.S., and New York City premieres, while also participating in 118 recordings, four of which have been recognized with Grammy Awards.

Internationally celebrated for his expertise in 18th-century music, Bernard Labadie was appointed as OSL’s Principal Conductor in 2018, continuing the orchestra’s long tradition of working with proponents of historical performance practice. Built and operated by OSL, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music opened in 2011. New York City’s only rehearsal, recording, education and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, it serves more than 500 ensembles and 30,000 musicians each year.

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

This concert was made possible, in part, thanks to endowment support from The Adela and Lawrence Elow Fund for The Great American Songbook: 1900 to 1960. We thank the Elow Fund for The Great American Songbook for preserving and sustaining classic American songs through live performances.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Gotta Swing!Eyal Vilner Swing Band
2023-06-18 13:30 - 16:30
This family program geared for kids will approximately last 50 minutes.

Introduce your kids to swing, the energetic, rhythmic dance that originated in Harlem in the 1920s! Eyal Vilner’s Swing Band and several dancers will present for a fun, educational show that will explore the rich history of this uniquely American art form. By late afternoon, everyone will fully understand why it’s called swing … when the musicians play (or sing), they “swing the beat,” meaning they play the notes late and then catch up in the next beat. Gotta swing, baby!

There will be some unreserved table seating available. Kids can also sit (or dance!) on the dance floor in front of the stage.

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

“Vilner offers clever charts, excellent musicianship and an exciting new sound in the finest tradition of contemporary big band music.” – Edward Blanco, All About Jazz NY

DancersGaby Cook Nathan BughJennifer Jones Ray Davis

Learn More About the Artists

Eyal Vilner Swing Band
Eyal Vilner is one of the leading new voices in the New York swing and big band scene.

Originally from Tel Aviv, the saxophonist, clarinetist, flutist, composer, and bandleader moved to New York in 2007 and started his big band the following year.

The Eyal Vilner Big Band has been performing widely at some of New York’s landmarks such as Lincoln Center, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Joyce Theater, Birdland, Dizzy’s Club, Smalls Jazz Club, Minton’s Playhouse, Midsummer Night’s Swing, and Central Park SummerStage. Internationally, Vilner has performed on Israel’s most prestigious stages, including at the Red Sea Jazz Festival, Tel Aviv Museum, Jerusalem Theater, and The Tel Aviv Jazz Festival, as well as the historical La Bellevilloise, Le Duc des Lombards, and Caveau de la Huchette in France.

The big band performs Vilner’s original compositions as well as his new arrangements of jazz classics. Their music, which derives from the tradition of jazz, swing and the blues, strives to bring a unique voice to this beautiful art form. The big band’s first six albums are: Introducing the Eyal Vilner Big Band (2011), Almost Sunrise (2015), Hanukkah (2016), Swing Out! (2019), Live in Washington Square Park! (2021), and The Jam! (2022), which received rave reviews and made it to the Top Jazz Radio Charts of the U.S. and Canada.

To learn more about Eyal Vilner, please visit his website (eyalvilner.com).

Jennifer Nicole Jones

Jennifer Nicole Jones is a New York City-based dancer. Originally from Akron, Ohio she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance Performance from Wright State University, while performing with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Jones has performed in many regional and off-Broadway productions, including Swing! The Musical. Her television credits include Godfather of Harlem, Soultrain Music Awards, Boardwalk Empire, and Showtime at the Apollo. Most recently, she appeared in The Joyce Theater’s production of SW!NG OUT.

Learn more about Jennifer Nicole Jones on Instagram (@jennifernicolejones).

Ray F. Davis

Ray F. Davis is a performer, choreographer, teacher born in Kingston, Jamaica, currently residing in the Bronx. He has been a professional dancer for 17 years and he is still always adding movement from different genres. Davis trained under the BLADE technique with the Hip Hop Dance Conservatory. He was the Associate Artistic Director of the Conservatory and BLADE Dance Academy. He is proficient in various styles of Hip Hop and many genres of partner dance as well as solo dances, such as lindy hop, salsa, foxtrot, ballet, modern, and jazz to name a few. He has performed and taught in China, Cuba, Barbados, Sweden, England, Canada, Puerto Rico, Korea and various cities in the United States. Davis sends a huge thank you to his mentors, dancers, teachers, and people who continue to influence and cultivate his passion for movement.

Learn more about Ray F Davis on Instagram (@rayfdavis).

Gaby Cook

Gaby Cook is an esteemed, active professional in the global lindy hop community. For nearly 20 years, she been teaching and performing worldwide for events such as Herräng Dance Camp, Paris Jazz Roots, and Lindy Focus. In New York, she performs for theater, film, and is principal dancer in SW!NG OUT, produced by the Joyce Theater. A Guggenheim Works & Process Residency recipient, her stage credits include the 50th Anniversary Kennedy Center Celebration, BET Soul Train Awards, Jacob’s Pillow’s Inside/Out Series, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center, and many appearances at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.

To learn more about this Gaby Cook, please visit her website (http://gabycook.com).

Nathan Bugh

Nathan Bugh is a swing-dance champion, performer, teacher, and co-creator of the Joyce Theater’s SW!NG OUT. He has performed at Carnegie Hall (Swing Swing Swing w/ New York Pops), The Apollo Theater (Swingin’ Frankie’s Way), and Jacob’s Pillow (Earthbeat!, More Forever, SW!NG OUT). Bugh dances in the film, Rebel In The Rye, and in several music videos, including the Weepies’ Be My Honey Pie. He has earned numerous first-place titles in solo jazz, lindy hop, team, invitational, slow dance, and mix/match divisions at events such as the International Lindy Hop Championships (ILHC). He was also the director and choreographer of “Yeah Man,” the 2015 ILHC Team champions. In 2016, he joined Caleb Teicher for Meet Ella, an acclaimed duet incorporating lindy hop with other jazz/theater styles. His subsequent work with Caleb Teicher & Company has helped expand the possibilities for jazz dance in concert.

To learn more about this Nathan Bugh, please visit his website (http://www.nathanbugh.com).

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

This concert was made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of Pat and Ian Cook.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Hot Jazz Age FrolicEyal Vilner Big Band
2023-06-18 16:00 - 17:00
Slip on your shiny dancing shoes and get swept away by the irresistible rhythms of swingin’ jazz at Caramoor’s second Hot Jazz Age Frolic! This high-energy event takes place under an airy tent turned into a hot-to-trot dance club plucked right out of 1920s Harlem. Join us on the dance floor for a lesson, then be unabashed and strut your stuff. Or just sit back at a table with your two left feet, a cocktail in hand, and enjoy the live music by the critically acclaimed Eyal Vilner Big Band, a 17-piece musical tour de force. Feel free to sport your favorite swing-era vintage look!

Bringing the family? Come earlier to the Family Event, Gotta Swing!, at 1:30pm.Reserved seating at tables by the dance floor is available by selecting the “Premium Tickets” option at checkout.

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

“Vilner offers clever charts, excellent musicianship and an exciting new sound in the finest tradition of contemporary big band music.” – Edward Blanco, All About Jazz NY

ArtistsImani Rousselle, featured singerNathan Bugh and Gaby Cook, dance instructors

Learn More About the Artists

Eyal Vilner Big Band
Eyal Vilner is one of the leading new voices in the New York swing and big band scene.

Originally from Tel Aviv, the saxophonist, clarinetist, flutist, composer, and bandleader moved to New York in 2007 and started his big band the following year.

The Eyal Vilner Big Band has been performing widely at some of New York’s landmarks such as Lincoln Center, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Joyce Theater, Birdland, Dizzy’s Club, Smalls Jazz Club, Minton’s Playhouse, Midsummer Night’s Swing, and Central Park SummerStage. Internationally, Vilner has performed on Israel’s most prestigious stages, including at the Red Sea Jazz Festival, Tel Aviv Museum, Jerusalem Theater, and The Tel Aviv Jazz Festival, as well as the historical La Bellevilloise, Le Duc des Lombards, and Caveau de la Huchette in France.

The big band performs Vilner’s original compositions as well as his new arrangements of jazz classics. Their music, which derives from the tradition of jazz, swing and the blues, strives to bring a unique voice to this beautiful art form. The big band’s first six albums are: Introducing the Eyal Vilner Big Band (2011), Almost Sunrise (2015), Hanukkah (2016), Swing Out! (2019), Live in Washington Square Park! (2021), and The Jam! (2022), which received rave reviews and made it to the Top Jazz Radio Charts of the U.S. and Canada.

To learn more about Eyal Vilner, please visit his website (eyalvilner.com).

Imani Rousselle
Imani Rousselle is a Texas-born vocalist with a love for interpreting and delivering the message of songs. Whether singing jazz standards or contemporary compositions, her voice invites you to follow along as she fills space with carefully crafted sound. She currently makes her home in New York City, having graduated the Manhattan School of Music in the spring of 2021. Prior to moving to New York, Imani studied at Columbia College Chicago, during which time she performed on many stages around Chicago including the legendary Jazz Showcase and The Green Mill, and she gained the honor of being named a Luminarts Cultural Fellow. Since moving to New York in 2019, Rousselle has performed at the world-famous Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Clements Place, the Schomburg Center in Harlem, The Joyce Theater, and more. She has sung alongside great musicians including Stefon Harris, Casey Benjamin, Marc Carey, Jaleel Shaw, Domo Branch, Cory Henry, and Roger Boykin, and she is excited to continue expanding creatively and performing in a world with renewed fervor for connection and creation.

To learn more about Imani Rouselle, please visit her website (https://www.imanirousselle.com).

Gaby Cook
Gaby Cook is an esteemed, active professional in the global lindy hop community. For nearly 20 years, she been teaching and performing worldwide for events such as Herräng Dance Camp, Paris Jazz Roots, and Lindy Focus. In New York, she performs for theater, film, and is principal dancer in SW!NG OUT, produced by the Joyce Theater. A Guggenheim Works & Process Residency recipient, her stage credits include the 50th Anniversary Kennedy Center Celebration, BET Soul Train Awards, Jacob’s Pillow’s Inside/Out Series, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center, and many appearances at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.

To learn more about this Gaby Cook, please visit her website (http://gabycook.com).

Nathan Bugh
Nathan Bugh is a swing-dance champion, performer, teacher, and co-creator of the Joyce Theater’s SW!NG OUT. He has performed at Carnegie Hall (Swing Swing Swing w/ New York Pops), The Apollo Theater (Swingin’ Frankie’s Way), and Jacob’s Pillow (Earthbeat!, More Forever, SW!NG OUT). Bugh dances in the film, Rebel In The Rye, and in several music videos, including the Weepies’ Be My Honey Pie. He has earned numerous first-place titles in solo jazz, lindy hop, team, invitational, slow dance, and mix/match divisions at events such as the International Lindy Hop Championships (ILHC). He was also the director and choreographer of “Yeah Man,” the 2015 ILHC Team champions. In 2016, he joined Caleb Teicher for Meet Ella, an acclaimed duet incorporating lindy hop with other jazz/theater styles. His subsequent work with Caleb Teicher & Company has helped expand the possibilities for jazz dance in concert.

To learn more about this Nathan Bugh, please visit his website (http://www.nathanbugh.com).

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The Harlem Gospel Travelers
2023-06-22 19:00 - 19:30
Amidst socio-political unrest and lingering pandemic unease, The Harlem Gospel Travelers sing about hope and resiliency in a style that draws on the gospel quartet tradition of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Their debut LP, He’s on Time, landed a spot on the 2019 Billboard charts. While the album could be classified as “retro” or “vintage,” the truth is that The Harlem Gospel Travelers aren’t just reviving sounds from the past, they’re revitalizing them for the present and reminding us just how relevant this music is (and always has been) in times of hardship and uncertainty. Continue your celebration of Juneteenth at this joyous show.

Please bring your own seating for this performance on Friends Field. Picnics are encouraged!

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

Learn More About the Artists

Things are looking up for The Harlem Gospel Travelers, who have a new album, a new lineup, and a new lease on life. Produced by Eli Paperboy Reed, Look Up! marks the group’s first full-length release as a trio, as well as their first collection of totally original material, and it couldn’t have come at a more vital moment. The music still draws deeply on the gospel quartet tradition of the ’50s and ’60s, of course, but there’s a distinctly modern edge to the record, an unmistakable reflection of the tumultuous past few years of pandemic anxiety, political chaos, and social unrest. The songs are bold and resilient, facing down doubt and despair with faith and perseverance, and the performances are explosive and ecstatic, fueled by dazzling vocal arrangements punctuated with gritty bursts of guitar and crunchy rhythm breaks. Born out of a non-profit music education program led by Reed, The Harlem Gospel Travelers —singers Thomas Gatling, George Marage, and Dennis Bailey — released their debut LP, He’s On Time, to rave reviews in 2019, with Pop Matters hailing the album’s “musical transcendence” and All Music praising it as “dreamlike and joyous.” The record charted on Billboard, earned them some high-profile fans like Elton John (who invited them to appear on his Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music), and landed them festival slots everywhere from Pilgrimage to Telluride Jazz.

To learn more about the Harlem Gospel Travelers, please visit their website (harlemgospeltravelers.com).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZTsmFU5qS4

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Brooklyn Rider
2023-06-23 20:00 - 20:30
With the energy of four young rock stars, Brooklyn Rider performs a program that explores the four elements (earth, air, water, and fire) as a metaphor for the complex inner world of the string quartet and the current health of planet Earth. You’ll hear music created within the last century of accelerated and unprecedented climate change, including pieces commissioned by the Quartet, by composers whose works reflect current realities and serve as a musical call to action. Will you heed the call?

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

Artists

Johnny Gandelsman, violinColin Jacobsen, violinNicholas Cords, violaMichael Nicolas, cello

Program

THE FOUR ELEMENTSColin Jacobsen (based on American Folk Songs as collected by Ruth Crawford Seeger): A Short While to be HereAndreia Pinto-Correia: Aere senza stelle (NY premiere) Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110 Osvaldo Golijov: Tenebrae

About The Four Elements
A Short While To Be Here (2023) Colin Jacobsen (based on American Folk Songs as collected by Ruth Crawford Seeger) I. Whoa, Mule! II. Hommage a Ruth III. Peep Squirrel IV. The Old Cow Died V. Little Birdie

We have a “short while to be here, and a long time to be gone,” as the lyrics go on the American folk song Little Birdie. Astronaut Loren Acton described his experience looking down at our home planet Earth from above: “Looking outward to the blackness of space, sprinkled with the glory of a universe of lights, I saw majesty – but no welcome. Below was a welcoming planet. There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly fragile shell of the biosphere is everything that is dear to you, all the human drama and comedy. That’s where life is; that’s where all the good stuff is.” In writing this piece, I was very much inspired by the example of Ruth Crawford Seeger, one of America’s most forward looking composers of the early part of the 20th century. Then her life took a turn in Depression-era America as she and her husband Charles Seeger began a deep investigation of American folk music alongside the Lomax brothers during the FDR years. She treated folk music with the respect and attention that Bela Bartok had exhibited in a somewhat parallel fashion in Europe, and as an educator became deeply committed to teaching folk songs to children. She published several collections of American folk songs for children, including the Animal Folk Songs for Children. She also raised 4 children of her own during that challenging time, several of whom became icons of the folk-revival movement in the generation to come (step-son Pete Seeger, and her own children Peggy and Mike Seeger). For around 20 years, her personal compositional voice was silent, but in 1952, she wrote one last modernist composition, a wind quintet before falling ill and eventually succumbing to cancer. I like to imagine what would have happened if she had lived longer and had attempted to further integrate her life’s work- her love of folk music alongside her formalist/composerly voice. So this piece, representing Earth in our The Four Elements project, is very much an hommage to Ruth (nicknamed “Dio” by her children) as well as joyous celebration of our home planet. This of course includes all animals and children past and present who’ve been here or will be here a short while and then gone for a long time…

— Colin Jacobsen

Aere senza stelle (2022) Andreia Pinto Correia The inspiration for Aere senza stelle (Air Without Stars) was the tempestades de poeira—or dust storms—that travel from the Sahara Desert to the Iberia Peninsula, a phenomenon experienced during my youth in Portugal. From the descriptions of “blood rains” as bad omens epics by Homer, Hesiod, and Plutarch, to scientific observations by Darwin and Ehrenberg in the nineteenth century, up until today, the reporting of desert dust storms has evolved from descriptive narratives to encompassing an entire field of environmental research. Re-reading Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, I recognized a profound poetic connection to climate change, and so I mirrored the structure of Canto III, 22-30 dividing the work into three sections. In the final measures, the string quartet creates a sonic cloud, as though carrying an infinite stream of particles from the desert to other parts of the world. I. Lacrimoso, quasi recitativo – the starless air: lyrical and static. II. Agitato, strepitoso – a tumult of voices: dense, angular and dissonant. III. Misterioso, senza misura. Inquieto – time suspended. A whirlwind of sands, vanishing into infinity. Commissioned by the 2022 Vail Dance Festival, Damien Woetzel – Artistic Director – Aere senza stelle is dedicated in admiration to António Guterres, for his life dedication to climate change issues, and to Catarina Vaz Pinto. A special thank you to Brooklyn Rider.

— Andreia Pinto Correia

String Quartet No. 8 in c minor, Op 110 (1960) Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Shostakovich’s explosive Eighth String Quartet was written in just three days in 1960 while visiting Dresden to write music for the film Five Days and Five Nights about the Allied firebombing of that city in World War II. Dedicated to “the victims of fascism and war,” the extra-musical meaning of the work has long been debated. Is it an aautobiographical statement about the composer’s struggles against the Stalinist regime, a reference to the Holocaust, or a rebuke to totalitarianism? While we will never ultimately know, this beloved work has nevertheless secured a place as one of the most important and searingly powerful works of the 20th century. The basic building block of the five movement composition is based on the spelling of the composer’s name DSCH (D-E-flat-C-B), heard in the fugal opening of the first movement. The second movement reveals an iconic Jewish theme also heard in the composer’s famous Second Piano Trio. The composer describes his feelings on the qualitative elements of Jewish music in Testimony “Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me… it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It’s almost always laughter through tears. This quality… is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express despair in dance music.” Following the third movement’s macabre waltz, the fourth movement unfolds in a series of quotations. Opening with a series of ominous knockings, an inverted DSCH statement is juxtaposed, revealing a fragment of the Dies Irae from the Catholic Requiem Mass. Following this, the lower three instruments play a Russian funeral anthem (…tormented by the weight of bondage, you glorify death with honor…), followed by the two violins sounding the Russian revolutionary song “Languishing in prison.” Later in the movement, a soaringly transcendent cello melody from Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk serves as an emotional crest, followed by an elegiac and contrapuntal reprise of the DSCH theme in the concluding movement.

— Nicholas Cords

Tenebrae (2003) Osvaldo Golijov I wrote Tenebrae as a consequence of witnessing two contrasting realities in a short period of time in September 2000. I was in Israel at the start of the new wave of violence that is still continuing today, and a week later I took my son to the new planetarium in New York, where we could see the Earth as a beautiful blue dot in space. I wanted to write a piece that could be listened to from different perspectives. That is, if one chooses to listen to it “from afar”, the music would probably offer a “beautiful” surface but, from a metaphorically closer distance, one could hear that, beneath that surface, the music is full of pain. I lifted some of the haunting melismas from Couperin’s Troisieme Leçon de Tenebrae, using them as sources for loops, and wrote new interludes between them, always within a pulsating, vibrating, aerial texture. The compositional challenge was to write music that would sound as an orbiting spaceship that never touches ground. After finishing the composition, I realized that Tenebrae could be heard as the slow, quiet reading of an illuminated medieval manuscript in which the appearances of the voice singing the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet (from Yod to Nun, as in Couperin) signal the beginning of new chapters, leading to the ending section, built around a single, repeated word: Jerusalem.

— Osvaldo Golijov

About the Artists
With their gripping performance style and unquenchable appetite for musical adventure, Brooklyn Rider has carved a singular space in the world of string quartets over their 15-year history. Claiming no allegiance to either end of the historical spectrum, Brooklyn Rider most comfortably operates within the long arc of the tradition, seeking to illuminate works of the past with fresh insight while coaxing the malleable genre into the future through an inclusive programming vision, deep-rooted collaborations with a wide range of global tradition bearers, and the creation of thoughtful and relevant frames for commissioning projects.

The quartet’s 2023-23 concert season is strongly illustrative of the intrepid musical appetite of Brooklyn Rider. Last fall they began unveiling a major new commissioning and programmatic venture called The Four Elements, an exploration of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) as both metaphor for both the complex inner world of the string quartet and the current health of planet Earth. This winter, the quartet also released The Wanderer, their first ever live concert recording, made in Palieusius Manor in Eastern Lithuania while on tour last spring. The album consists of two works written recent works written for Brooklyn Rider by Gonzalo Grau and Osvaldo Golijov, as well as Schubert’s iconic “Death and the Maiden” String Quartet. This season also sees the quartet reuniting with Magos Herrera across the U.S. for their Dreamers project.

The 2021-22 season boasted two unique collaborative ventures: one with Israeli mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, and the other, a brand-new phase of work with Swedish mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, where they explored themes of love and death through the music of Franz Schubert and Rufus Wainwright. Also, 2022’s release of The Stranger (Avie Records) with tenor Nicholas Phan was recently nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award and made numerous “best of” lists for 2022, including The New Yorker. These projects, along with the rest of Brooklyn Rider’s extensive discography, have helped give rise to NPR Music’s observation that Brooklyn Rider is “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.”

To learn more about Brooklyn Rider, please visit their website.

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

This concert was made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The Amphion Foundation.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

American Roots Music Festival
2023-06-24 12:30 - 17:00
Caramoor’s annual American Roots Music Festival is back with a day overflowing with spectacular music performed throughout our grounds spanning the genres of blues, Americana, folk, and bluegrass. Spend the day in the gardens and discover the next artist you’ll add to your playlist. This day features multiple bands and ends with acclaimed singer-songwriter / ten-time Grammy-nominee Brandy Clark.

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

Grounds open at 12:00pm, music starts at 12:30pm, headliner starts at 7:30pm. We suggest bringing your own seating for the daytime performances, as none of the daytime sets have reserved seating.

Daytime & Evening Headliner Ticket Includes:

Reserved seat in the Venetian Theater for evening headliner, Brandy Clark.

All daytime artist sets starting at 12:30pm.

The price of your ticket determines where you will sit for the evening headliner.

Daytime Only Ticket Includes:

All daytime artist sets starting at 12:30pm.

This ticket does not include concert tickets to Brandy Clark.

“Even as her world expands, and her style shifts along with it, Brandy Clark keeps her feet grounded in the here and now. Her songwriting is only getting better.” — American Songwriter

Evening Headliner

Brandy Clark

Daytime Artists

Sunny War Miko Marks Mike Block TrioNefesh MountainLeon TimboDivining RodHayley ReardonOur Band

Festival Schedule

12:00pm / Grounds open

Learn More About the Artists

Brandy Clark
A ten-time GRAMMY nominee and CMA Awards “Song of the Year” recipient, Brandy Clark is one of her generation’s most respected and celebrated songwriters and musicians. Her songs include Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow,” Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart,” The Band Perry’s “Better Dig Two” and Hailey Whitter’s “Ten Year Town.” Her past two solo albums — 2013’s 12 Stories and 2016’s Big Day in a Small Town — each garnered immense critical acclaim landing on “Best of the Year” lists at New York Magazine, Billboard, NPR Music, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, etc. NPR Music’s Ann Powers calls her, “a storyteller of the highest caliber,” while Rolling Stone‘s Will Hermes declares, “a country visionary…the consolation of a beautiful voice delivering a well-built song, cold truth rising from it like fog off dry ice.”

Ten-time Grammy nominee Clark was nominated for two awards at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards: Song of the Year (“A Beautiful Noise” performed by Alicia Keys and Brandi Carlile) and Best American Roots Performance (“Same Devil” featuring Carlile). The nominations add to a landmark year for Clark, whose new deluxe album, Your Life is a Record (Deluxe), is out now on Warner Records. The special extended edition features all eleven tracks from Clark’s Grammy-nominated album, Your Life is a Record, as well as six new songs including “Same Devil.” The deluxe version, which was released this past spring to celebrate Your Life is a Record‘s one-year anniversary, also includes a collaboration with Lindsey Buckingham as well as “Remember Me Beautiful,” which Clark wrote late last year with Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna, and Liz Rose for NPR’s Morning Edition Song Project. Released to widespread acclaim, Billboard praised the song, asserting, “Clark beautifully recounts what loss feels like, both for the person left behind and for the one slipping away … Whether you lost someone you love deeply during this horrible year or 20 years ago, Clark’s song instantly recalls the pain and beauty,” while Rolling Stone declares, “a new stunner of a song,” and Music Row hails, “powerfully emotional gem.” Produced by Jay Joyce, Your Life is a Record was nominated for Best Country Album at the 63rd GRAMMY Awards and landed on several “Best of 2020” lists including NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Variety, Paste and Slate, who declared, “one of the greatest living short-story-song writers in country (which really means in any genre) … I don’t think there’s a 2020 country or country-adjacent album that outdoes Clark’s.” Moreover, The New Yorker praised, “No one is writing better country songs than Brandy Clark is…all of Clark’s albums have terrific songs, but Your Life is a Record is the best-sounding album that she’s released.” Her songwriting is featured in the new Broadway musical comedy Shucked (opening March 2023). To learn more about Brandy Clark or to stream her music, please visit her website (https://www.brandyclarkmusic.com).

Sunny War
Sunny War is an internationally touring, Nashville-based singer-songwriter and true guitar virtuoso. Her 9new album, Anarchist Gospel, coming soon via New West Records, explores themes of deep internal conflict. “I feel like there are two sides of me,” says War. “That’s what it is to be human. You’re not good or bad, you’re just trying to stay in the middle of those two things all the time and you’re probably doing a bad job of it. That’s ok, because we’re all just monsters.”

To learn more about Sunny War, please visit her website (http://www.sunnywar.com).

Miko Marks
Thirteen years after her last album, Miko Marks re-emerged stronger than ever with Our Country (March 2021, Redtone Records). She had all but given up on her career aspirations after she was effectively told by Nashville executives that her music was good but wouldn’t sell. Fast-forward 13 years later — she crafted a beautiful album that is getting nods from NPR, Rolling Stone, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more. Most recently, Marks was named to the 2022 class of Country Music Television’s Next Women of Country, and she is participating in the first Equal Access program. In October 2022, Marks released her widely anticipated album Feel Like Going Home and made her Grand Ole Opry debut on the same day. The album landed on several year-end “best-of” lists including Rolling Stone, NPR, Paper, and Garden & Gun, among others.

To learn more about Miko Marks, please visit her website (https://www.mikomarks.com).

Mike Block Trio
Mike Block is a pioneering cello player, singer, composer, and educator, passionate about cross-cultural collaboration through music. Acclaimed by the New York Times for his “vital rich-hued solo playing” and by Salt Lake City Desert News as “a true artist… a sight to behold,” Block “is one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene” (Gramophone). Block’s performances offer a rich combination of classical repertoire, folk music, original compositions, and songs. Since 2005, Block has been a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, with whom he has been featured as both cello and vocal soloist, contributed arrangements and compositions, and earned a Grammy Award for their album Sing Me Home (2017).

Led by Mike Block, the Mike Block Trio fertilizes American roots music with contemporary and international influences, bringing an exciting and personal perspective to the acoustic music scene.

To learn more about Mike Block, please visit his website (https://www.mikeblockmusic.com).

Nefesh Mountain
Nefesh Mountain is the place where American Bluegrass and Old-time music meet with Jewish Heritage and tradition. Band leaders, genre-pioneers, and husband and wife Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg are the heart of this eclectic offering, and share their love for American music, their own cultural heritage, and each other with audiences throughout the world. The result of this unexpected and beautiful mix is staggering; and while complete with the kind of adept string virtuosity and through composed arrangements one would hope for from a newgrass band with influences from Bluegrass, Old-Time, Celtic, and Jazz, they also play and sing songs of the heart creating music with a sense of diversity, oneness, and purpose for our world today.

Their newest and most adventurous recording to date called “Beneath The Open Sky” was a tour de force for the band, featuring friends and bluegrass luminaries Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Tony Trischka And David Grier, along with their own band members Alan Grubner and Tim Kiah. The album’s 11 songs collectively weave together a groundbreaking and beautiful patchwork of new American music, being called “refreshingly eclectic” by Rolling Stone, and “One of the finest, wholly bluegrass records one will hear in not only 2018 but as a touchstone moving forward” by No Depression magazine.

Currently the Nefesh Mountain touring band/quintet plays over 150 dates worldwide with performances all throughout the US, Canada, Israel, England, and Australia. Their mission whether at a concert hall, festival, workshop, school, camp, or synagogue, is to spread the joy and magic of American roots music and help to champion and reinforce the powerful messages of diversity, wholeness, and harmony for our ever-changing times.

To learn more about Nefesh Mountain or to stream their music, please visit their website (https://www.nefeshmountain.com/).

Leon Timbo
The singular singer and songwriter Leon Timbo is a veteran artist who brings “a unique, rootsy sound that incorporates equal measures of vintage soul, gospel, folk, R&B, funk, dance music, and even modern blues” (All Music Guide) to a style he calls “transparent soul.”The son of parents who are both church pastors, Timbo was raised in Jacksonville, Florida and steeped in gospel music since birth. He began pursuing music seriously at 16 and worked the club circuit steadily into his 20s, when he was seen by actor and R&B superstar Tyrese Gibson, who asked the budding musician to open for him at the Dallas House of Blues. Tyrese introduced Timbo to GRAMMY-winning vocalist and producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, who signed Timbo to a record deal and took him on the road, cementing Timbo’s rapidly expanding career as one of the major young artists reclaiming American roots music’s association with the Black experience in the 21st century.

His most recent albums are 2021’s Lovers and Fools Vol. 1 and follow-up Lovers and Fools Vol. 2 released last year. These albums represent Timbo’s fully-realized steps into Americana, and showcase a musician whose has found his true voice — a voice full of passion, power, and depth.

To learn more about Leon Timbo or to stream his music, please visit his website (https://www.leontimbolove.com/)

Divining Rod
Originally, Divining Rod was the solo project of Hawaiian native Miyuki Furtado of the former TooPure recording artists, The Rogers Sisters. After recruiting guitarist Patrick Harmon, Furtado started playing shows handling guitar, vocals, and drums – utilizing his homemade suitcase drumset while Harmon added his unique guitar playing and harmonies to the mix. Second drummer John Malone and bassist MattSvigals round out the band. The result is melodic, rowdy & tender songs swathed in reverb.

Recently, the well-seasoned band recorded and mixed 12 songs over a few days at Virtue and Vice Studios. Most of the tracks on Santa Monica & Other Golden Classics were recorded live over a few days. Songs that are melodic, playful, rowdy, and tender, swathed in reverb and played with heart.

To learn more about Divining Rod or to stream their music, please visit their website (https://diviningrodmusic.com/)

Hayley Reardon
Hayley Reardon is a critically acclaimed folk pop artist and a storyteller in the truest sense of the word. Her songs serve as postcards from an artist brave enough to take the road less traveled. The songstress made the decision to begin living life boldly when she left Nashville to tour the world playing her music. In addition to having recently been based in Dachau, Germany for a six month artist residency program awarded by the city, she has spent the past 5 years carrying her songs and guitar all over the globe — gathering experiences, inspirations, and soulful connections along the way. The artist masterfully channels her colorful stories through music, capturing even the most subtle nuances of the human experience with a striking clarity.

Reardon recently made a splash with her single, “Losing From Within,” grabbing the attention of Spotify Editorial Playlists like Fresh Folk, Folk Pop, Morning Coffee, and Today’s Singer/Songwriters. Her latest EP, In The Good Light, was recorded in Barcelona with Catalan collaborators Pau Figueres (one of Spain’s finest guitarists) and Aniol Bestit Collellmir (recording engineer) at The Sound of Wood Studio. The EP embodies Reardon’s essence with a kiss of Spanish flair on certain tracks. The artist discovered a new piece of home in Spain while recording the EP, “It was amazing to travel across the world and work with people who were essentially strangers from an entirely different culture,” she says, “and feel so deeply and effortlessly understood by them.”

Raised in Massachusetts, Reardon dove head first into music at the young age of 15. She has now been honing her craft for a full decade now, sharing the stage with acts like Lori McKenna, Rodney Crowell, and Anaïs Mitchell, among others. Her raw artistry boasts a lyrical and melodic weight far beyond her years, being described as “brilliantly moving folk/pop with a lyrical depth and soul” (Performer Magazine) and “a melancholy little masterpiece” (American Songwriter Magazine). No Depression writes “Reardon is truly a treasure.”

To learn more about Hayley or to stream her music, please visit her website (https://www.hayleyreardon.com/)

Our Band

Our Band will win your heart. Sasha Papernik and Justin Poindexter bring their award-winning songwriting and bold interpretations to a rich Americana soundscape. With their airtight harmonies, irreverent humor, and astounding instrumental virtuosity, the pair’s restless creativity knows no bounds – both in concert and in their unique music videos. Together, they have performed for audiences in some of the world’s greatest venues, from Carnegie Hall to Lincoln Center to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. In 2018-19 they toured Poland, Germany and Estonia as ambassadors of American music for U.S. State Department. Their debut album, featuring American music legend David Amram, was released to critical acclaim in 2021. Songs in their new “Our Band: Live Studio Sessions” project featuring steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar have won finalist places in this year’s MerleFest and New Song songwriting competitions.

Vocalist and pianist/accordionist Sasha Papernik is a classically trained pianist and first generation Russian-American. The Washington Post calls her “uncommonly attractive and entertaining…managing a comfortable balance of the formal and the casual.” Drawing on her dual heritage, she uses her wide range of talents to present concerts spanning genres and continents. Her self-released bilingual album, “Victory,” has been hailed by reviewers as “unparalleled in its aesthetics and musical elegance” (Indiemunity). Her bilingual concert, “I Speak Music,” has toured New York City schools for The Center For Arts Education, Lincoln Center Education, and Carnegie Hall. Sasha is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Manhattan School of Music.

Guitarist and vocalist Justin Poindexter was raised in North Carolina, the son of a country singer and a schoolteacher. Specializing in American Roots music, including folk, blues, country and traditional jazz, his 2014 album with the Amigos, “Diner in the Sky,” won Americana Album of Year from the Independent Music Awards. Justin has performed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, David Amram, Ken Peplowski, Bria Skonberg, Ranger Doug, Nellie McKay, Catherine Russell, and Jon Batiste among many others, and has travelled extensively overseas for the American Music Abroad program. He co-designed and leads Jazz at Lincoln Center’s global outreach concert initiative, “Let Freedom Swing,” which receives 600 performances annually. Justin is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Francesca Caccini's Alcina
2023-06-25 16:00 - 17:00
Spend a late afternoon on a magical island with a beautiful enchantress, a vengeful sorceress, a valiant knight, and an eager lover who gets seduced, then cursed and turned into a rock. This passionate paradise awaits you in the tent of Caramoor’s Venetian Theater.

Full of wit, drama, and melodious arias, this first opera by a female composer will cast its spell as Caramoor’s gardens are transformed through song, people shapeshift into trees, and true love prevails.

Pre-Concert Events Included with Ticket

3:00pm / Join us for a conversation with Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs.3:00pm / Toast Pride Month with LGBTQ+ friends, family, and allies at our annual Pride and Prosecco reception!

Garden Listening / For those who prefer a more casual concert environment, Garden Listening tickets are $20, and are free for Members and children under 18 years old. Listen to the concert broadcast onto Friends Field (audio only) while enjoying a picnic, admiring a starry sky, or relaxing with the family. We recommend you bring your own seating for Garden Listening.

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

ProgramFrancesca Caccini: Alcina

ArtistsBoston Early Music FestivalPaul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical DirectorsGilbert Blin, Stage DirectorMelinda Sullivan, Dance DirectorMireille Lebel, mezzo-soprano (Alcina)Colin Balzer, tenor (Ruggerio)Cecilia Duarte, mezzo-soprano (Melissa)David Evans, tenorBrian Giebler, tenorJohn Taylor Ward, baritoneMichael Galvin, bass-baritone

About Caccini’s Alcina
A contemporary of Monteverdi and a colleague of Galileo, Francesca Caccini came of age in Florence during the earliest years of opera as an art form. Both a composer and a performer, she was one of the most important musical figures at the Medici court during the regency of Christina of Lorraine and her daughter-in-law Maria Maddalena. In 1625, amid this time of female leadership, she created the first opera by a woman composer, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina. Alcina is a brilliant entertainment, full of wit, magic, and drama, with a demanding title role first sung by the composer herself. At the center of a struggle of illusion and destiny, the sorceress Alcina stands between the valiant magician Melissa and her quest to save the warrior Ruggiero and liberate the captives who Alcina has transformed into plants and trees to ornament her island.

Francesca Caccini’s creation of Alcina, by Stephen Stubbs
At the moment when Francesca Caccini composed her opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina—which she called a “balletto”—in 1625, she was living and working in the epicenter of the ideas and artists which had led to the creation of opera. The various academies in Florence (commonly called the Florentine Camerata) in the 1570s and 1580s where artists, scholars, and interested “amateurs” considered the nature of ancient Greek drama and music, provided the intellectual backdrop to the artistic experiments by the poets, particularly Ottavio Rinuccini, and the composers, including Jacopo Peri, Emilio de’ Cavalieri, and Francesca’s father, Giulio Caccini. There was a shared sense amongst these artists and thinkers that something momentous was in the works as the turn of the century approached and several musical leaders, including Caccini, Peri, and Cavalieri, rushed to the printing presses in 1600 to stake a claim for their innovations.

The Florentine wedding celebrations for Marie de Medici and Henri IV in 1600 were the site of the birth of opera in the form of Peri’s setting of Rinuccini’s libretto Euridice performed at the Pitti Palace on October 6, 1600. In this context, the intense rivalry between Peri and Caccini became obvious. Caccini demanded that his students (including his daughter Francesca in her singing début) would only be allowed to perform their roles if they sang them in his own musical setting rather than that of Peri. Thereafter Caccini exacerbated the affront by rushing his complete setting of Euridice to print on December 20, 1600, without mentioning the performance of Peri’s version—or even the name of the librettist! Peri followed soon after with the publication of his own score, but Cavalieri had beaten them both to the punch with the publication of his own Rappresentazione di Anima, et di Corpo on November 10, 1600. The various claims to primacy included the new style of composition, the new style of singing, and who had been doing it the longest. At this distance of time, those petty arguments recede, and artistic merit of composition comes to the fore. In that, Peri was holding the best hand, and Francesca Caccini (and, by the way, Claudio Monteverdi as well) clearly knew it. Peri had forged a musical language that was more expressive of the nuances of text and simultaneously more continuous than that of his rivals. Caccini’s attempt at theatrical monody kept coming to a cadence, giving the impression of a series of discrete songs with no cumulative force of continuous narrative.

Indeed, Giulio Caccini was to stake a more valid claim to fame with his publication of Le Nuove Musiche in 1601. This collection of continuo songs was not only the first of its kind (preceding a flood of similar publications over the coming decades which includes Francesca’s own contribution, Il primo libro delle Musiche, in 1618) but more importantly, in the preface, he sets out a manifesto of the merits and techniques of a new way of singing and of composing for the voice. Even if Giulio Caccini had not been the father of Francesca, his manual of the aesthetics of singing would still have been the best extant guide to the performance of her music, but as her mentor, it holds double force. Many details from this preface are worthy of intense study by modern performers, but beyond the exact notation and execution of certain ornaments, the overarching message of this work is that the dynamic shaping of long notes (with shapes that we would describe as varieties of crescendo and decrescendo, but which Caccini calls “crescere e scemare della voce,” and especially: esclamazione) is the locus of emotional expression in singing, and that decorative ornamentation for its own sake (unless underlining a particular meaning in the text) is just empty posturing, to be shunned by true artists and connoisseurs. The other most important feature of Caccini’s preface is his emphasis on the concept of sprezzatura, a term going back to the enormously influential manual of courtly behavior, Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano from the early sixteenth century. This untranslatable term is close in meaning to our use of the word “nonchalance” in the sense of someone who exhibits extreme accomplishment with seeming effortlessness. In Caccini’s usage, this extends to a certain freedom or “flow” in the performance of solo song which includes what we might describe with accelerando and ritardando, but Caccini denotes with the expressive phrase “quasi favellando in armonia con la suddetta sprezzatura.”

Considering what works and composers could have exercised influence or inspiration on Francesca Caccini’s creation of Alcina, we can start with Peri’s Euridice, possibly her first public performance at the tender age of thirteen. Besides the overall style of recitar cantando which Francesca adapted from Peri (as did Monteverdi) rather than the alternative models of her father or Cavalieri, the element of tre flauti (three recorders) to usher in the pastoral atmosphere (for Peri’s shepherd Tirsi, or Francesca’s shepherd simply called Pastore) was not just similar, but almost a variation in triple time of Peri’s original. Shortly after the wedding celebrations of 1600, King Henri IV of France issued an invitation to the entire Caccini clan to come to his court in Paris, which they did in 1604. Henri declared Francesca to be the best singer in France and his Queen applied to the Florentine court to retain her there. The request was denied, but Francesca returned to the Medici court with her own reputation on the rise. We don’t know what music she encountered in France, but her virtuoso song for the Siren in Alcina has all the earmarks of pieces that Monteverdi called in stile Francese. Francesca must have been aware of the great twin achievements of Monteverdi in nearby Mantua in 1607 and 1608—first his Orfeo, then his lost Arianna. Arianna’s iconic lament influenced all laments to follow including Alcina’s, but it is Orfeo, which, in its variety as well as its emotional intensity, provides the closest precursor to Alcina in general. Marco da Gagliano’s La Dafne for the Medici court in 1608 must have been known to Francesca, and his paean to Apollo there, Almo Dio, is a clear model for hers called Biondo Dio in the prologue to Alcina. The prominence of ensembles for three sopranos in Alcina, given to the title character’s entourage of damigelle, can be traced back to the prominent concerto delle donne of Ferrara and Luzzaschi’s publication of their repertoire in 1600, but find an even more exact precursor in the Three Euretti (little breezes) which flew around the figure of Aurora in Stefano Landi’s 1619 La Morte d’Orfeo. Was this idea simply “in the air” or did she actually know Landi’s piece? We don’t know, but one element in Alcina, that of the chorus of monsters, takes an idea of grotesquery in theatrical music which goes back at least to Cavalieri’s portrayal of the damned souls in hell, but gives it a rollicking demonic energy which goes far beyond anything which precedes it.

Francesca Caccini, in composing Alcina at the height of her powers as a singer and as a composer, gathering all these strains together, not only created a brilliant and multifaceted musical work, but also fashioned a role for herself—that of Alcina—which carried echoes of Monteverdi’s iconic abandoned woman, the lamenting Arianna. Yet, this moment of lament and abandonment is only one station on her trajectory from magical seductress to her final state of vengeful sorceress, and in this, Francesca Caccini created a prototype of the powerful and dangerous woman that went on to take so many imposing shapes in the history of opera.

Amazons, Saints, Sorceresses, and La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina, by Kelley Harness
Midway through Ferdinando Saracinelli’s libretto for La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina, the benevolent sorceress Melissa, temporarily disguised as Atlante, the former (male) tutor of Ruggiero, berates the errant young knight for allowing himself to be drawn into a feminine world of sensuality and luxury while the world is at war. When she mocks him for having profaned his sword by using it to declare his love for Alcina and orders him to remove the jewelry and necklaces that adorn his body, she reminds him—and the audience—that Ruggiero has foolishly exchanged valor for sensuality, squandering the most crucial masculine virtue in favor of one of the most dangerous feminine vices.

Audience members well-acquainted with Lodovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, the sixteenth-century chivalric poem on which Saracinelli based the libretto set musically by Francesca Caccini, might have viewed the scene with some puzzlement. Where was the magic ring Melissa carried for the express purpose of jolting Ruggiero to his senses? And why no mention in this passage of Bradamante, Ruggiero’s intended bride, with whom he was destined to found the Este dynasty? Some perceptive listeners might have recognized Melissa’s words from a different, albeit similar context, for Saracinelli borrowed parts of the speech directly from another well-known Renaissance epic, Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata [Jerusalem liberated]. There, an actual (not disguised) male figure utters the words, as the Christian knight Ubaldo attempts to break through the enchantment afflicting his comrade Rinaldo, who like Ruggiero is under the spell of an enchantress, this time Armida.

Francesca Caccini’s Melissa has no need of a magic ring. In melodically and harmonically controlled musical speech she orders Ruggiero to divest himself of his emasculating garb. And her words have the desired effect; Ruggiero immediately throws off his bangles and other ornaments and declares his readiness to rejoin the battle. Melissa goes on to liberate not only Ruggiero, but all Alcina’s enchanted captives, eventually emerging victorious in a showdown with Alcina herself.

Forceful commands emanating from female mouths would have been quite common in Florence of 1625, the year of the work’s first performance. At the time the city was under the direct control of two women: Grand Duchess Maria Magdalena (1589–1631), widow of Grand Duke Cosimo II (1590–1621), and Christine of Lorraine (1565–1636), Cosimo’s mother. This had been the case since February 1621, when Cosimo’s death left his ten-year-old son Ferdinando II as the heir to the throne. Cosimo II had established in his will that his wife and mother should serve as regents, supported by a council of hand-picked advisors, until his son reached his eighteenth birthday. It was Maria Magdalena, who was also a Habsburg archduchess and sister to the current Holy Roman Emperor, who commissioned La liberazione to honor the state visit of her nephew Władysław, heir to the Polish throne and hoped-for husband to her daughter Margherita. The work was performed at her own recently renovated Villa Poggio Imperale. And she was the dedicatee of both its published libretto and score.

La liberazione was but the most recent in a string of commissions through which Archduchess Maria Magdalena promoted images of assertive, virtuous women, figures with which she wanted to associate herself. She sponsored operas featuring heroic female protagonists, one of which, Marco da Gagliano’s La regina Sant’Orsola [Queen Saint Ursula], received its second performance as part of the Polish prince’s state visit. (The first performance had taken place just three months earlier.) In Andrea Salvadori’s libretto for that work, Saint Ursula barks out orders similar to those of the opera’s other, male generals. These generals direct armies of Hun and Roman troops, while Ursula commands her band of 11,000 virgins (only eleven actually appeared in the opera), as well as Ireo, her jilted ex-fiancé. Like her male counterparts, and like Melissa, Ursula expects to be obeyed. Saint Ursula also appeared in a painted lunette fresco in the archduchess’s audience room in her villa, the physical space most closely linked to Maria Magdalena’s political persona. Nine other female sovereigns and saints joined Ursula in the room’s frescos, including the queens Matilda of Canossa, Isabella of Castile, and Costanza of Sicily and the saints Pulcheria, Clothilde, and Catherine of Alexandria.

The archduchess commissioned similar frescoes for her bedroom and its antechamber, there focusing on female saints (including Agatha and Cecilia, both of whom were the subjects of dramatic musical works performed on behalf of Archduchess Maria Magdalena) and biblical heroines such as Judith, whose daring decapitation of the Assyrian general Holofernes with his own sword Artemisia Gentileschi depicted artistically for the Medici court around 1620. Judith would return as the title character in Marco da Gagliano’s opera La Giuditta of 1626.

Archduchess Maria Magdalena was also the dedicatee of two literary works intended to remind readers of the long history of women’s contributions to the church, to the arts, and to history more broadly: Niccolò Lorini del Monte’s Elogii delle più principali S. donne del sagro calendario [Praises of the most important holy women of the sacred calendar] (Florence, 1617) and Christofano Bronzini’s multivolume treatise entitled Della dignità, e nobiltà delle donne [On the dignity and nobility of women] (Florence, 1622–1632). Maria Magdalena herself is featured in a biographical essay in the third volume of Bronzini’s treatise.

La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina can thus be viewed within the context of Archduchess Maria Magdalena’s other artistic and theatrical commissions, and its protagonist, Melissa, compared to the saints and biblical heroines that dominated them. Melissa shares with these women assertive texts condemning sensual love, and characters such as Judith and Saint Ursula may well have delivered their texts with the same sort of musical forcefulness Melissa exhibits throughout Francesca Caccini’s work. The music for these other operas, unfortunately, has been lost, so an understanding of them is limited to whatever information their librettos contain.

In general, the music of Caccini’s La liberazione resembles that found in the contemporary operas of Florentine composers such as Jacopo Peri and Marco da Gagliano: characters deliver their speeches primarily in recitative, which ranges from expressively neutral to highly impassioned. All three composers reserved music-focused moments such as tuneful or florid songs for use in specific dramatic situations, such as when the immoderate Alcina imitates the sweet songs of sirens in her own ornamented eruption, the only instance in the entire work in which a principal character sings a florid passage. Choruses serve to add variety to the musical palette and help to articulate an opera’s formal structure.

But La liberazione is not an opera: the title pages of both the libretto and the score refer to the work as a balletto, rather than a favola or azione sacra, the genre designations often associated with other operas of the 1620s. And the work concludes with stage directions indicating the incorporation of an extended, multi-part ballo, which celebrates Melissa’s vanquishment of Alcina. The directions read (in translation), “Here comes the ballo of eight ladies of Her Most Serene Archduchess with eight principal knights, and they perform a most noble dance.” The ballo begins when, in a brief recitative dialogue with Melissa, one of the ladies recently freed from Alcina’s enchantments beseeches her benefactor to liberate the ladies’ lovers, as well, to which Melissa agrees. The ladies and their knights dance, to music not included in Caccini’s score, after which a chorus of liberated knights sings of their joy. Then, according to the score “there follows a ballo on horseback” [ballo a cavallo], again without music included in the published score, although Saracinelli provides stanzas to be sung during the balletto, including three four-line stanzas delivered by Melissa, who enters the arena on a pageant cart pulled by centaurs.

By commissioning a work that incorporated a horse ballet, Archduchess Maria Magdalena visibly aligned her patronage with that of her late husband, the individual most associated with the introduction of dramatic equestrian entertainments to Florence. The first of these, Lorenzo Franceschi’s Ballo e giostra de’ venti [Ballet and Joust of the Winds], took place in 1608 as part of the festivities celebrating Maria Magdalena’s marriage to then Crown Prince Cosimo II. The Medici court would go on to sponsor performances of balletti a cavallo to commemorate the marriages of two subsequent generations of Medici bridegrooms: Grand Duke Ferdinando II (in 1637) and Crown Prince Cosimo III (in 1661), the archduchess’s son and grandson. Her husband Cosimo II not only rode in his own wedding festivities but organized two horse ballets in 1616, the second of which (Guerra di bellezza [War of Beauty]) celebrated the visit of his future son-in-law Prince Federico della Rovere of Urbino. Perhaps Maria Magdalena sought to emulate this event nine years later when she sponsored La liberazione’s concluding horse ballet. One of her principal diplomatic goals for the visit, after all, was to convince her nephew, Prince Władysław, to marry her daughter Margherita.

The marriage negotiations did not proceed as the archduchess hoped, but La liberazione was a success, according to contemporary accounts. By sponsoring an entertainment that combined opera and horse ballet, Maria Magdalena demonstrated the Medici court’s promotion of two genres which, according to their inventors, revived but also improved on their ancient Greek models. Although she did not actually ride in the event, she attended its rehearsals, and information provided in Bronzini’s biography suggests that she might well have overseen it in some capacity. Bronzini deliberately credits the archduchess with transcending traditional limitations imposed on her gender:

[T]his most serene lady, even though not born to thread and cloth (being born a great lady), nor to horses and arms (being born a woman), activities to which she might by custom have been forbidden, nonetheless understands everything necessary for one who governs family, as well as everything else that the majesty of her state requires.

Bronzini goes on to expand on Maria Magdalena’s equestrian skills, exclaiming “She was born to horsemanship [maneggi] and grand maneuvers; in cavalry drills she robbed (i.e., acquired) with her eyes the discipline learned by all the lords at court.” He thus stresses that the archduchess’s skills were self-taught. He also may have wished to allude to the more general implications of the root verb maneggiare (to mold, to handle) in order to praise the archduchess’s governing abilities. His assertions serve as the topic sentence for a paragraph that actually returns to one of his earlier themes, namely, the well-suited match between Maria Magdalena and Cosimo, and, writing in the 1620s after the grand duke’s death, he reminds his readers of the equestrian entertainments that characterized the happier previous decade. Grand Duke Cosimo may have sponsored and ridden in these spectacles, but Bronzini makes it clear that Maria Magdalena played an equally important role. Once again he returns to the topos of eyes, but this time Maria Magdalena’s eyes exercise authority over the male objects of her gaze, rather than stealing from them:

Nor were festivities or tournaments ever performed . . . at which she did not want to be present, to see everything rehearsed, to hold the script, to be exceptionally attentive (not like a curious spectator, but as a discerning and diligent observer), in order to remind and advise (as she often did), seeing what of this or of that might be lacking something, and to speak her opinion with wise judgment.

Maria Magdalena’s participation in these festivities led to their success, Bronzini claims, and her own equestrian abilities, coupled with her skill with firearms, made her a formidable hunter, worthy of the epithet “a new amazon in Tuscany.”

One important social function of the horse ballets was to allow Tuscan noblemen to demonstrate publicly not only their own equestrian skills and thus their own nobility, but also to display their family’s prestige, visually confirming their family’s ongoing relationship to the Medici family. For the horse ballet that concluded La liberazione, the court diary lists twenty-four such noble participants, over half of whom had ridden in horse ballets with Maria Magdalena’s late husband during the previous decade. Now they demonstrated their loyalty to her. Using Bronzini’s terminology, the archduchess molded their actions for the twenty minutes of the horse ballet, just as she directed the bodies of the event’s spectators, who physically had to shift locations in order to watch the courtyard performance of the balletto, as Susanne Cusick has noted.

Like Melissa, whose own forceful speech, adapted in part from the words of a parallel male figure, joined with the visage of a male authority figure in order to compel Ruggiero to submit to her will, Archduchess Maria Magdalena was able to control what audience members heard and saw. In Villa Poggio Imperiale they witnessed images of forceful women whose actions liberated their people and/or determined the outcome of historical events. This was the role Maria Magdalena appears to have envisioned for herself, both within the grand duchy and as part of the larger European community then engaged in the Thirty Years’ War. Melissa concludes her scene with Ruggiero by encouraging him to join her in quickly taking up arms, for she worries that “a short delay can destroy a great honor.” Archduchess Maria Magdalena, that “new amazon in Tuscany,” undoubtedly concurred.

— Kelley Harness, University of Minnesota

For further reading:

Cusick, Suzanne G. Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court: Music and the Circulation of Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Harness, Kelley. Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Harness, Kelley. “Nata à maneggi & essercizii grandi”: Archduchess Maria Magdalena and Equestrian Entertainments in Florence, 1608–1625. In La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina: Räume und Inszenierungen in Francesca Caccinis Ballettoper (Florence 1625), edited by Christine Fischer, 89–106. Zurich: Chronos, 2015.

Dance in BEMF’s Alcina, by Melinda Sullivan

The blending of dance, verse, and music to create a sublime connection has great interest for me. All three forms of expression reflect upon one another, highlighting the transformative power that is Baroque opera. While the verse and music for La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina were notated, the dance was not.

Dance was at the core of seventeenth-century Italy, with moral, political, and aesthetic concerns. Contemporaneous writing about dance has proven incomplete. Dance treatises describe steps, but we miss the essential connection between teacher and student, choreographer and dancer. Dance tunes were often written by multiple—and at times anonymous—composers with no choreography attached. And eyewitness accounts often describe the energy or affect of a ballo, but were imprecise about the specific dance forms, steps, and floor patterns. Any reconstruction requires invention.

For this production I went back to the dance manuals of Negri (1602), Caroso (1600), and Arbeau (1589); the paintings, tapestries, sculptures, and gardens of Caccini’s Florence; Ovid’s Metamorphoses; and to many secondary sources written by dance historians. These sources helped inform my own inspiration to create the movement and dance of the characters in this story. When the Siren commands a dance of love and delight, all dance a flirtatious passo e mezzo. The ladies set free from Alcina’s spell dance a springing pavaniglia, and when the men are freed they dance a lively saltarello.

For the added Epilogue, Cavalieri’s ballo “O che nuovo miracolo” from the end of La pellegrina, we do have original notation of steps and floor patterns. This rare notation, from the 1589 wedding festivities of Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici and Christine de Lorraine, offers insight to theatrical dances of the time. We see that while the dance steps are similar to those of the social dances of the day, the use of space is more presentational toward an audience. The original entertainment was filled with moving scenery, and featured twenty-five instrumentalists, sixty singers, and twenty-seven dancers, all elaborately costumed. Dances from the work’s six intermedi included a battle between Apollo and a dragon, celestial and infernal demons, and in the final intermedio the gods bequeath harmony and rhythm. Only this last intermedio’s choreography is notated in Cristofano Malvezzi’s publication of the music and text. I have distilled the choreography to fit our space while retaining the harmony and order of the original. Dance, verse, and music come together in a glorious conclusion.

— Melinda Sullivan

Learn More About the Artists

Stephen Stubbs, conductor
Stephen Stubbs, who won a Grammy Award as conductor for Best Opera Recording in 2015, returned to his native Seattle in 2006 after 30 years in Europe as one of the world’s most respected lutenists, conductors, and Baroque opera specialists. In 2007, he established his new production company there, Pacific MusicWorks (PMW); its inaugural presentation was of South African artist William Kentridge’s acclaimed multimedia staging of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera The Return of Ulysses in a co-production with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. PMW’s performances of the Monteverdi Vespers were described in the press as “utterly thrilling” and “of a quality you are unlikely to encounter anywhere else in the world.” Stubbs is also the Boston Early Music Festival’s Artistic Co-Director along with his long-time colleague Paul O’Dette. They are the musical directors of all BEMF operas, recordings of which were nominated for six Grammy awards, including one Grammy win in 2015, two Echo Klassik awards, the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Stubbs has also conducted many operas throughout North America and in Europe. His extensive discography as conductor and solo lutenist includes well over 100 CDs, many of which have received international acclaim and awards.

To learn more about Stephen Stubbs, please visit his website (https://stephenstubbs.com).

Gilbert Blin, director
Gilbert Blin was awarded a Doctorate from Leiden University for a thesis dedicated to his approach to Historically Informed Staging. He has established himself as a sought-after opera director for the early repertoire, collaborating with the Paris Opéra-Comique, Prague State Opera, Drottningholm Theatre, Opéra de Nice, and Boston Early Music Festival, among others. As Stage Director in Residence at BEMF beginning in 2008, and as BEMF’s Opera Director since 2013, Blin has staged and designed all of its Festival centerpiece productions and staged every BEMF Chamber Opera Series production. These include a trilogy of English operas, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea; Handel’s first opera, Almira; and Monteverdi’s three extant operas, Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and L’incoronazione di Poppea. In 2011, after staging Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, he presented Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs. Blin returned to French chamber operas in 2016, creating Versailles: Portrait of a Royal Domain, a spectacle comprising pieces by Charpentier, Lully, and Lalande, and he staged additional French works in 2022. Other recent productions include Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice for Seattle, Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise, and Steffani’s Orlando generoso for Boston, and Caccini’s Alcina for New York.

To learn more about Gilbert Blin, please visit his website (https://gilbertblin.eu).

Robert Mealy, BEMF orchestra director
One of America’s most prominent Baroque violinists, Robert Mealy has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” by the Boston Globe. The New Yorker has called him “New York’s world-class early music violinist.” He has recorded and toured with a wide range of distinguished early music ensembles in the U.S. and Europe, from Sequentia to Les Arts Florissants. He has led orchestras for Masaaki Suzuki, Nicholas McGegan, William Christie, Andrew Parrott, Paul Agnew, and Helmuth Rilling, among many others. Mealy is Orchestra Director of the Boston Early Music Festival. Since 2005 he has led the BEMF Orchestra in their festival performances and award-winning recordings. In New York, he is principal concertmaster at Trinity Wall Street for their concerts of the complete Bach cantatas. He is also co-director of the acclaimed 17th-century ensemble Quicksilver. In 2018, Mealy made his recital début at Carnegie Hall. A devoted teacher as well as a performer, Mealy has directed the graduate Historical Performance Program at The Juilliard School since 2012, and before that he taught at Yale and Harvard. In 2004, he received Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship. He has recorded over 80 CDs on most major labels. He still likes to practice.

Melinda Sullivan, dance director
Melinda Sullivan is the Lucy Graham Director of Dance at Boston Early Music Festival. She is a well-known movement and dance coach for singers. Her recently produced A Retrospective: The Story of the BEMF Dance Company is available on BEMF’s YouTube page. Sullivan danced in her first BEMF production in 1995. She returned to dance and assist the late choreographer Lucy Graham in all subsequent BEMF opera productions over the next twelve years. In 2008, Sullivan assumed the role of BEMF Ballet Mistress, training dancers and singers in Baroque and Renaissance style and technique. She has choreographed extensively for BEMF since 2010, including productions and revivals of Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo .A graduate of Boston Conservatory, Sullivan quickly established herself as a dynamic performer in Boston’s modern dance scene. Her studies in Renaissance dance led to performances with the Ken Pierce Baroque Dance Company. She created a unique movement and dance program for singers, and taught for 30 years, primarily at New England Conservatory and Boston University Opera Institute. Since 2008, Sullivan has also been Resident Choreographer at Central City Opera.

To learn more about Melinda Sullivan, please visit her website (http://www.melindasullivan.com).

Mireille Lebel, mezzo-soprano
Canadian mezzo-soprano Mireille Lebel sings leading lyric mezzo roles in opera and concert internationally. Now based in Berlin, she began her career as a young artist at the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal and from there moved to Germany to join the ensemble at Theater Erfurt. After finishing her contract, she became a freelance artist singing with theaters including Deutsche Oper, Opera Atelier, Prague State Opera, Tafelmusik, Theater Basel, Opéra-Théâtre de Metz, Opéra de Nice, Vancouver Opera, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Les Violons du Roy, Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Theater Dessau, and Collegium 1704. She has recorded seven opera discs with the Boston Early Music Festival on the CPO label, including Grammy winner La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers. Her discography also includes Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 with the Richter Ensemble, and the world premiere recording of Alois Broeder’s opera, The Wives of the Dead. In 2020, she co-founded with Rachel Fenlon the artistic collective Crown The Muse, and she was awarded a Canada Council Grant for their first collaboration, a new take on Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, with stage director Bruno Ravella.

To learn more about Mireille Lebel, please visit her website (https://www.mireillelebel.com).

Colin Balzer, tenor
Tenor Colin Balzer has sung acclaimed recitals in London, New York, Philadelphia, and Vancouver, and concerts with the Portland, New Jersey, Québec, Atlanta, Montréal, and Indianapolis Symphonies, Early Music Vancouver, Tafelmusik, Les Violons du Roy, the National and Calgary Philharmonics, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Musica Sacra, and the Oratorio Society of New York. His opera performances with the Boston Early Music Festival include Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Handel’s Almira, Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Lully’s Psyché, and Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow. He has been featured in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Bolshoi and in Aix-en-Provence, and Mozart’s La finta giardiniera in Aix and Luxembourg. He has also appeared with Collegium Vocale Gent with Philippe Herreweghe, Fundacao OSESP Orchestra with Louis Langrée, Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Akademie für alte Musik with Marcus Creed. His recordings include Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch, and Eisler and Henze song anthologies; he has also recorded operas and the Steffani CD Duets of Love and Passion with BEMF. Balzer earned the Gold Medal at the Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau with the highest score in 25 years.

Virginia Warnken Kelsey, mezzo-soprano
Hailed by the New York Times as a “rich-toned alto” with “riveting presence,” two-time Grammy Award–winning mezzo-soprano Virginia Warnken Kelsey has been widely recognized for her dynamic and heartfelt interpretations of 17th– and 18th-century opera and oratorio, as well as avant-garde 20th– and 21st-century works. Virginia is an original member of Roomful of Teeth, a celebrated experimental vocal ensemble dedicated to celebrating the boundless expressive potential of the human voice. She has appeared as a featured soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, BBC Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque, Boston Early Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival, among many others. Her performance as La Conversation in BEMF’s recording of Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles earned her a 2019 Grammy Award nomination in the Best Opera Recording category. A longtime resident of New York City, Virginia has made countless solo appearances with the American Classical Orchestra, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Clarion Music Society, Tenet Vocal Artists, Musica Sacra, and the Oratorio Society of New York. Virginia is happiest when surrounded by nature and loves herb gardening, beekeeping, hiking, and swimming in the ocean.

To learn more about Virginia Warnken Kelsey, please visit her website (https://www.virginiawarnken.com).

Learn More About Boston Early Music Festival

Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble
The Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble débuted in November of 2008 in Boston with John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon. The ensemble is a collection of fine young singers dedicated to presenting choice operatic and other treasures as both soloists and members of the chorus, under the leadership of BEMF Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs. The BEMF Vocal and Chamber Ensemble’s début recording of Charpentier’s Actéon, on the CPO label, was released in November 2010. Subsequent CPO releases include Blow’s Venus and Adonis in June 2011, the Charpentier opera double bill of La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs in February 2014, which won the Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Opera Recording and the 2015 Echo Klassik Opera Recording of the Year (17th/18th Century Opera), Handel’s Acis and Galatea in November 2015, Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles andLes Arts Florissants, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2019, and Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles and Le Concert d’Esculape in 2020. The BEMF Vocal Ensemble has mounted several successful tours of its chamber opera productions, including a four-city North American Tour of Acis and Galatea in early 2011 that included the American Handel Festival in Seattle.

Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble
The Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble was established in October of 2008, and delighted the public a month later at the inauguration of the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Opera Series with a production of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon. The BEMF Chamber Ensemble is an intimate subset of the BEMF Orchestra, and is led by one or both of BEMF’s Artistic Directors, Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, or by BEMF’s Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and features the best Baroque instrumentalists from around the world. The BEMF Chamber Ensemble’s third CD on the CPO label, the Charpentier opera double bill of La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, won the Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Opera Recording. Their fifth CD, Steffani’s Duets of Love and Passion, featuring sopranos Amanda Forsythe and Emőke Baráth, tenor Colin Balzer, and baritone Christian Immler, was released in September 2017 in conjunction with a six-city tour of North America, and received a Diapason d’Or. The seventh CD, a return to Charpentier featuring Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants, was nominated for a Grammy in 2019, and the eighth, Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles and Le Concert d’Esculape, was released in 2020.

Boston Early Music Festival
The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is universally recognized as a leader in the field of early music. Since its founding in 1980 by leading practitioners of historical performance in the United States and abroad, BEMF has promoted early music through a variety of diverse programs and activities. BEMF is currently producing its 33rd annual concert season, lauded for presenting early music’s brightest stars on the Boston and New York concert stages, and in June 2023 will hold its 22nd biennial weeklong Festival and Exhibition, hailed as “the world’s leading festival of early music” (The Times, London). Through these programs and more, BEMF has earned its place as North America’s premier presenting organization for music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods and has secured Boston’s reputation as “America’s early music capital” (Boston Globe). BEMF regularly presents its own Baroque opera productions to great acclaim, from full-length centerpieces of its biennial Festivals to more intimate presentations during the year as part of its Chamber Opera Series. BEMF’s recordings of these operas have won the Grammy Award, the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, two Echo Klassik awards, the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, and many other accolades. BEMF also tours and presents operas and concerts featuring the BEMF Orchestra and the BEMF Chamber and Vocal Ensembles.

To learn more about BEMF, please visit their website (bemf.org).

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Callisto Quartet
2023-06-29 19:00 - 19:30
Praised for their “intensity and bravado” and the “cohesion and intonation one might expect from an ensemble twice their age” (Third Coast Review), the Callisto Quartet was formed in 2016 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and has since garnered top prizes in the 2018 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, as well as several others. Currently the Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at Yale University, Callisto has previously held residencies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the prestigious Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain.

The Callisto Quartet was Caramoor’s 2020-22 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence.

Artists

The Callisto QuartetCameron Daly, violinGregory Lewis, violinEva Kennedy, violaHannah Moses, cello

Program

W.A. Mozart: String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat major, K428Franz Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D.810 ‘Death and the Maiden’

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Ivalas Quartet is regretfully unable to perform as scheduled on June 29th. Instead, we will be presenting the Callisto Quartet, our 2020-2022 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, in a program of Mozart and Schubert. The originally scheduled program by the Ivalas Quartet will be rescheduled for a later date to be announced.

No further action is needed, your tickets and seat selections will be honored upon arrival. If you have any questions, please call the box office at 914.232.1252.

Sandbox Percussion
2023-06-30 20:00 - 20:30
Described as “exhilarating” (The New York Times), and “virtuosic and utterly mesmerizing” (The Guardian), Brooklyn’s Sandbox Percussion is one of today’s leading percussion ensembles. Seven Pillars, nominated for a Grammy in 2021, is the jaw-dropping result of a years-long collaboration with trailblazing composer Andy Akiho. The boldly genre-defying collaboration consists of seven ensemble movements and one solo movement for each member of Sandbox. With a striking lighting scheme by Michael Joseph McQuilken, the 80-minute, 11-part work is the largest-scale chamber music work that Akiho has written and that Sandbox has commissioned, with their collaboration spanning the past eight years.

7:00pm / Join us for a conversation with members of Sandbox Percussion.

WARNING: This performance features strobe lights, and could potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

“Wielding lightning-fast syncopated stickwork, Sandbox Percussion created a hypersonic morse code …” — Musical America

ArtistsJonny AllenVictor CacceseIan Rosenbaum Terry Sweeney

ProgramAndy Akiho: Seven Pillars

About Seven Pillars
Seven Pillars by Andy Akiho explores the free spaces created within an organized structure. This evening-length work, comprising seven quartets and four solos, began with its central movement, PillarIV. Originally commissioned as a stand-alone work, this piece contained a rigorous structure and motivic content that Akiho felt compelled to expand beyond its 10-minute capsule. PillarIV became the nucleus for SevenPillars, containing the DNA from which the other six quartets are built.

The macro-structure of Seven Pillars is made up of two simultaneous processes. The first is an additive process where each movement introduces a new instrument that is then incorporated into the subsequent pillars. To balance this expansion, there is a symmetrical structure on either side of the central movement, Pillar IV.

The reflecting movements—PillarsI &VII, Pillars II & VI, Pillars III & V—share formal elements, motives, pitch sets, and other musical elements, but Akiho is the first to say that this is not the point of SevenPillars. Rather, this structure creates space that can be populated with emotion and imagination. Even the reflecting movements are occupied by wildly different aesthetics despite sharing an underlying logic. While still observing the macro-structure, these free spaces are first seen in the solo movements. The solos have a more improvisatory form, elaborating on the pillars, going off on tangents, or transporting us to somewhere else entirely. They are the skin to the pillars’ bones, but, as we zoom in further, this soft tissue permeates every moment of this meticulously crafted work.

Pillar I unapologetically throws us into the world of Seven Pillars. The building blocks of the piece are flying around like shrapnel, colliding and combining with each other to eventually congeal into a cohesive whole. The timbral color of this movement is equally elemental, offering the starkest palate of unpitched, articulate, and raw sounds.

The first solo, Amethyst,is scored for vibraphone, and it transports us away from the cacophony of PillarI into the colorful, dreamlike world of pitch and brightness. Beginning with lyricism and subtlety, Amethyst eventually works itself into a frenzy. In the aftermath of this turmoil, the movement floats away into the cosmos of Pillar II.

Pillar II is an otherworldly experience generated from Akiho’s reimagining of what the vibraphone and crotales can be. It begins with glowing, amorphous sounds. The resolution on these sounds is made finer and finer as the piece progresses, until they become sharply defined. The glowing waves of light at the start of the piece become sparkling photons of light at the finish.

Pillar IIIbrings us back to earth with its firm rhythmic underpinning. Interlocking figures dance around each other and then snap into unison. We are treated to Akiho’s version of a backbeat— in 13 beats rather than in 4—which is layered with complex variations that culminate into a fire- alarm of sound. As with Amethyst, this irreconcilable tumult collapses into a sedated coda, recuperating from the previous blows.

The second solo, Spiel, introduces the glockenspiel, but not as it’s ever been heard before. This glockenspiel kicks down the door and delivers a relentless message, dazzling with its speed and agility. Eventually it disappears into thin air as if nothing had happened.

The stage is now set for the nucleus of the whole piece, PillarIV. Every theme presented thus far is here, tightly woven into an impenetrable lattice structure. No event is out of place, this movement is the gears of the clock. Even in its moments of ambiguity, PillarIV has a straight- faced determination that is unflappable.

mARImbA, the third solo of Seven Pillars, introduces the marimba to our sound palette. It begins starkly, with a single bowed pitch that looks back to the sounds that began Pillar II. This gives way to a distant chorale – soft, deep, rolled marimba chords interrupted by a distant vibraphone melody. The piece ends with an aria. This improvisatory and melodic section jumps back and forth from the very bottom to the very top of the marimba, pushing and pulling as it fades away into a distant memory.

PillarVis a sadistic game. The marimba is now an integral part of the sound world with its rich depth, and the piece has also begun retracing its steps by reflecting the forms of previous movements. In PillarVwe hear the same hexatonic scale that we heard in PillarIII, but now it is used as the foundation for a bass line ostinato. With each repetition, this piece swells like a festering wound, and where Amethystand PillarIIIleft off in their self-devouring crescendos, PillarVcontinues. A singular build which lasts the latter two-thirds of the movement presses forward relentlessly. PillarVends with a manic, obsessive, accelerating repetition of its six pitches.

Pillar VI is the delirious fever-dream following Pillar V. A motif like the twitchy ticking of a clock in the high marimba is battled by unsettled unison gestures. These finally give way to a weightless feeling in the middle of the movement. The final section of PillarVI is profound in its unique simplicity within the context of Seven Pillars. Unison repeated pulses anchor a high marimba descant that reaches and grasps for unattainable heights. These pulses fade away and so too does the desperate melody.

The fourth and final solo, carTogRAPh, is also the penultimate movement in SevenPillars. Scored for a multi-percussion setup (a ‘trap’ set) consisting of a variety of pitched and unpitched sounds, carTogRAPhis a virtuosic display of rhythmic complexity and agility. The work is extroverted and exuberant, oftentimes sounding as if it could take the place of the drum solo in a rock concert. At the moment the listener feels like they could tap their foot or predict what comes next, the music shifts beneath their feet. Titled accordingly, carTogRAPhrequires the performer to navigate a highly detailed map of musical twists and turns in this exhilarating demonstration of dexterity.

PillarVIIis full of nostalgia. This is thanks in part to the simple three-note melody that permeates the whole movement, as well as the familiar themes that are recapitulated within this movement. Formally, PillarVIIis nearly a carbon copy of PillarI, but rather than stark unpitched sounds, PillarVIIispopulated with all the vivid colors that have been discovered throughout the piece. By now, we’ve come to expect the gradual build that has propelled so many of the previous movement forward, but PillarVIIfinds its own way to deliver on this front. Rather than breaking itself under the duress and intensity, PillarVIItranscends itself. Notes that were dizzyingly fast now seem comforting, and with each successive layer we gain confidence, not concern. This movement, and the entire SevenPillars, finishes with the performers executing over five thousand notes in the final three minutes alone. It’s like taking off in a rocket, and we all are passengers.

— Jonny Allen

About the Artists
Described as “exhilarating” (The New York Times) and “utterly mesmerizing” (The Guardian), Grammy-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion brings out the best in composers through their unwavering dedication to artistry in contemporary chamber music. Brought together by their love of chamber music and the simple joy of playing together, Sandbox Percussion captivates audiences with performances that are both visually and aurally stunning.

Sandbox Percussion’s 2021 album Seven Pillars was nominated for two Grammy awards — Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance and Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Sandbox Percussion will perform Seven Pillars over 15 times in the 2022 – 23 season, with sold-out stops throughout the United States and Europe. In October, Sandbox Percussion will perform the work live with the LA Dance Project and choreographer Benjamin Millepied at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

In addition to maintaining an international performance schedule, Sandbox Percussion holds the position of ensemble-in-residence and percussion faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and The New School’s College of Performing Arts, where they have created a curriculum with entrepreneurship and chamber music at its core. In 2016, Sandbox Percussion founded the annual NYU Sandbox Percussion Seminar — a week-long seminar that invites percussion students from around the globe to rehearse and perform today’s leading percussion chamber music repertoire.

Sandbox Percussion endorses Pearl/Adams musical instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks and mallets, Remo drumheads, and Black Swamp accessories.

To learn more about Sandbox Percussion, please visit their website.

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

WARNING: This performance features strobe lights, and could potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy

This concert was made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The Amphion Foundation.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Tessa Lark, violin Michael Thurber, double bass
2023-07-01 11:00 - 20:30
Caramoor’s lush Sunken Garden provides the perfect environment to experience both sound and silence as you learn to listen mindfully to music and nature. Violinist Tessa Lark (Evnin Rising Stars alumna) and double bassist Michael Thurber blend their bluegrass and jazz backgrounds for this meditative event.

Each program begins with a meditation guided by Jennifer Llewellyn (of Majestic Hudson, Katonah), and continues with live music performed by the next generation of classical music stars.

Please bring your own seating for this performance in the Sunken Garden.

$15 Extra Add-On Per Party / Pre-Event: Join the Bedford Riding Lanes Association (BRLA) for a 45-minute 1.75 mile mellow hike starting at 10:00am.

Learn More About the Artists

Tessa Lark, violin

Violinist Tessa Lark is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. In 2020 she was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category and received one of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Awards: the special Hunt Family Award. Other recent honors include a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition.

She solos regularly with many of the major orchestras around the world, from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to Seattle Symphony, and has appeared in recital in such prestigious venues and series as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts series in Weill Hall (2017).

She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her — most notably SKY, a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto written for Tessa by Michael Torke which earned both a Grammy nomination for Tessa and a Pulitzer finalist distinction for Torke.

Lark is a graduate of New England Conservatory and completed her Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School. She plays a ca. 1600 G.P. Maggini violin on loan from an anonymous donor through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

To learn more about Tessa Lark, please visit her website (https://www.tessalark.com).

Michael Thurber, double bass

Songwriter/bassist/producer Michael Thurber is a singular artist whose career defies category. Whether composing scores for The Royal Shakespeare Company, playing bass in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s house band, scoring commercials for Vanity Fair and BBC, or co-founding the hit YouTube channel CDZA (30 million views), Thurber has been guided by Duke Ellington’s principal: There are only two types of music — good and bad. Make the good kind.

As a theater lyricist/composer, Thurber made his international debut scoring Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Oscar winner Tarell McCraney. He has scored numerous Public Theater productions, including Shakespeare in the Park’s Merry Wives, Romeo Y Julieta starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, and Richard II, starring André Holland.

Thurber’s musical Goddess received its world premiere at Berkeley Rep in the fall of 2022. It will play next in the spring of 2023 at D.C.’s Shakespeare Theater Company.

As a bassist, Michael has performed with James Taylor, Willie Nelson, Chris Thile, Lianne La Havis, Cee Lo Green, Yo-Yo Ma, The Zombies, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jon Batiste, and many others. Currently he tours the world in a Duo with Grammy-nominated violinist Tessa Lark.

As a producer, Thurber’s career began in 2012 when he co-founded CDZA, a YouTube channel with 30 million views. CDZA was a headliner at the first ever YouTube Music Awards alongside Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Eminem, and MIA.

Thurber has produced/co-written records in the R&B, indie, jazz, and classical spaces, including Downbeat Magazine’s Critic Pick Alma Oscura. Most recently, Thurber has been releasing singles under his own name. He studied music at The Juilliard School and The Interlochen Arts Academy.

To learn more about Michael Thurber, please visit his website (https://www.michaelthurber.org).

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

This concert was made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of Sandra and William Cordiano and The Maximilian E. and Marion O. Hoffman Foundation.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Plena Libre
2023-07-01 20:00 - 21:00
The trailblazing Plena Libre has been thrilling international audiences for nearly three decades. Masters of the traditional Puerto Rican plena and bomba styles, Plena Libre fuses well-loved traditions with modern Afro-Caribbean influences, putting a new and always electrifying spin on this scintillating music. With mesmerizing hand drumming, raucous horns, and soaring three-part vocal harmonies, this multi-Grammy Award–nominated band always brings the heat.

Please bring your own seating for this performance on Friends Field. Picnics are encouraged!

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

Artists

Gary Núñez, Founder, Director, Composer, and Bass Victor Vélez, Singer and Percussion Luisga Nuñez, Singer and Percussion Rafy Falú, Percussion Miguel De Jesús, Singer and Percussion Alex Lopez “Callejero”, Singer and Percussion

Learn More About the Artist

The trailblazing Plena Libre has been thrilling international audiences for nearly three decades. Masters of the traditional Puerto Rican plena and bomba styles, Plena Libre fuses well-loved traditions with modern Afro-Caribbean influences, putting a new and always electrifying spin on this scintillating music. With mesmerizing hand drumming, raucous horns, and soaring three-part vocal harmonies, this multi-Grammy Award-nominated band always brings the heat. The band blends traditional Puerto Rican Plena rhythms with modern Afro-Caribbean influences in their contemporary compositions. They mix a hard-hitting horn section, master hand drummers, and lush vocal harmonies into a modern blend. The band plays some Bomba and Jíbaro folk music too, but mostly Plena. They’ve toured the world from Morocco to California and everywhere in between, and recorded with some of the biggest names in Latin music, including Eddie Palmieri, Papo Lucca (La Sonora Ponceña), and Nestor Torres.

To learn more about Plena Libre, please visit their website (www.plenalibre.com).

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Pops & Patriots
2023-07-02 16:00 - 17:00
Celebrate Independence Day at Caramoor! The Westchester Symphonic Winds join us for their annual tribute to America’s independence with a program that includes The Star-Spangled Banner, Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever, and a Broadway medley performed by alumni of our Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program.

Please note: There will be no fireworks following the performance.

Garden Listening / For those who prefer a more casual concert environment, Garden Listening tickets are $20, and are free for Members and children under 18 years old. Listen to the concert broadcast onto Friends Field (audio only) while enjoying a picnic, admiring a starry sky, or relaxing with the family. We recommend you bring your own seating for Garden Listening.

Summer Season Shuttle / Take the FREE shuttle from Metro North’s Katonah train station to and from Caramoor! The shuttle runs before and after every summer afternoon and evening concert. No need to RSVP to get on the shuttle, it will be there when you arrive (in the parking lot side of the station). And if it’s not there, that means that it just left and will be back in 5-10 minutes!

Learn More About the Artists

Curt Ebersole, Conductor and Music Director
Curt Ebersole has served as the Conductor and Music Director (John P. Paynter Memorial Chair) of the Westchester Symphonic Winds since 2008, fostering its exponential growth over the past 14 years. He retired from Northern Valley Regional High School (Old Tappan, NJ) in 2013 after serving as Director of Instrumental Music for 31 years. His ensembles were honored with consistent critical accolades, and his instrumental Prism Concerts became a local rite of spring. He now serves on the faculty at The Masters School, in Dobbs Ferry, NY (Jane Rechtman Faculty Chair), where he teaches String Ensemble, Chamber Music, and Public Speaking. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education and a Master’s degree in Conducting from Northwestern University, where he studied with John P. Paynter and clarinet with Larry Combs, and a Master’s degree in clarinet performance from SUNY Purchase, where he studied with Ben Armato.

Maestro Ebersole has served as a guest conductor and clinician for numerous county, regional, all-state, and adult community ensembles around the world, including performances at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Symphony Space, with the U.S. Army Field Band, along with performances in Las Vegas, South Korea, and Australia. He is the founding coordinator of the Music Educators of Bergen County Wind Conducting Symposium. He has served as a clinician at the Midwest Clinic, Temple University, Florida Music Educators Association, and presented his TED Talk, “Framing Failure,” at TEDxOneonta in 2017. His performance achievements include solo and ensemble performances as both a clarinetist and basset hornist.

Nicoletta Berry, soprano
Nicoletta Berry is a classical singer who commits her soprano to story-telling in multidisciplinary projects, recital, and the classical cannon alike. She has performed as a soloist with New York Festival of Song, Aspen Opera Theatre, and Juilliard Opera, under the baton of acclaimed conductors such as Barbara Hannigan and Dame Jane Glover. In 2022, Berry graduated from The Juilliard School, and was awarded the Stephen Novick Grant for Career Advancement. Berry received her Bachelor degree from The Manhattan School of Music, and her Master degree from The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Marlena Malas. She is an alum of Caramoor’s 2021 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars mentoring program.

To learn more about Nicoletta Berry, please visit her website.

Terrence Chin-Lo, tenor
American tenor Terrence Chin-Loy, whom Opera News described as having a “beautiful lyric tenor voice,” pairs passionate performance with a full, sweet sound. In the 2022-2023 season, Chin-Loy will perform Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with the National Taichung Theater in Taiwan as well as at Arizona Opera, Don José in Carmen with MasterVoices at Lincoln Center, Old Head 2 and Charlie in the world premiere of Factotum with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Acis in Acis and Galatea with Eugene Opera, and join the roster of the Metropolitan Opera to cover the role of Arbace in Idomeneo. In concert, he joins the North Carolina Symphony for Mozart’s Requiem, and the Boise Philharmonic for a performance of Hailstork’s I Will Life Mine Eyes as well as a residency with the College of Idaho.

Terrence opened the 2021-2022 season in his solo debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. He returned to Arizona Opera for his second and final season as a Marion Roose Pullin Resident Artist where he performed Henrik Egerman in A Little Night Music and Ferrando in Così fan tutte and Benny Paret Jr. in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Champion. In concert, Chin-Loy performed and recorded Taneyev’s At the Reading of a Psalm with the American Symphony Orchestra and Leon Botstein at Carnegie Hall.

Chin-Loy is a graduate of Indiana University, where he received a Performer Diploma. He also holds degrees from Mannes College and Yale University. He is a 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions National Semifinalist. He is an alum of Caramoor’s 2020 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars mentoring program.

To learn more about Terrence Chin-Loy, please visit his website (https://www.terrencechinloy.com).

Westchester Symphonic Winds
Westchester Symphonic Winds — an adult, community-based, 60-piece wind and percussion ensemble — celebrates its 35th season in 2022 – 23. The ensemble strives to promote music in our area, instill pride in our nation and heritage, provide opportunities for personal expression and growth within its membership, and nurture the love of music by offering an exceptional musical experience for people of all ages.

The ensemble was founded by Rachel Eckhaus, Robert LaPorta, and the group’s first conductor, James D. Wayne, who conducted the band from 1988 – 2004. Dr. Luis Fernando Jimenez was conductor from 2005 – 08. Curt Ebersole was invited to conduct the 20th Anniversary Gala Concert in 2008, and was subsequently invited to stay on permanently as Conductor and Music Director. Since 2008, guest conductors and clinicians have included Dr. Mallory Thompson, Dr. John Lynch, Dr. Tom McCauley, Dr. Shelley Axelson, Travis Cross, and Joseph Greco.

Over the years, the ensemble has given benefit concerts for many groups, including the Food Bank for Westchester, Student Assistance Services, Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation, Irvington Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Rotary Club of Briarcliff Manor, Emergency Ecumenical Food Pantry, Family Services of Westchester, Yonkers Arts Education, and others.

The ensemble made its New York City debut at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in March of 2010, its national debut at the 2012 Association of Concert Bands National Convention, and this event marks its eighth performance at Caramoor. The organization is an Ensemble-in-Residence at the historic Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, New York, and rehearses there on Monday evenings from September through June.

To learn more about Westchester Symphonic Winds, please visit their website (westchestersymphonicwinds.org).

Health & Safety / We’re committed to maintaining the health and safety of our audience, artists, and staff, while ensuring that every visit to Caramoor is comfortable and enjoyable. Click here for more information and up-to-date health and safety policies.

Caramoor is proud to be a grantee of ArtsWestchester with funding made possible by Westchester County government with the support of County Executive George Latimer.

All concerts made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
