Bloom: Floral Portraits
July 9, 2026 | 6–7 PM | Katonah Village Library | free and open to the public
Bloom explores the rich symbolism of flowers through two piano cycles by Amy Beach and Dora Pejačević.
A future performance with music from this program at Faraway Farm Alpacas will be announced soon.
Program
Edward MacDowell, Woodland Sketches, Op. 51 (1896)
To A Wild Rose
Amy Beach, From Grandmother’s Garden, Op. 97 (1922)
Morning Glories
Heartsease
Mignonette
Rosemary and Rue
Honeysuckle
Dora Pejačević, Blumenleben (Life of Flowers), Op. 19 No. 2 (1904/5)
Snowdrops
Violets
Lily of the Valley
Forget-me-nots
Rose
Red Carnations
Lilies
Chrysanthemums
About BLOOMBloom explores two remarkable piano suites inspired by flowers and the natural world: From Grandmother’s Garden, Op. 97 by Amy Beach and Blumenleben, Op. 19 (The Life of Flowers) by Dora Pejačević. Each suite is comprised of miniature pieces named after individual flowers.
At first glance, perhaps flowers seem an unlikely subject for serious musical expression. However, Beach and Pejacevic transform floral subjects into expressive cycles. Their music evokes the physical qualities of each flower (i.e. their movement, structure, growth habit, seasonality), but also the symbolic meanings flowers carried in Western culture.
Featured Composers
Amy Beach
1867-1944Amy Beach (1867–1944) was an American composer and member of the Second New England School of classical composers. Recognized early as a musical prodigy, her intensive training led to a brilliant debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age seventeen. Following her marriage to Dr. H.H.A. Beach in 1885, she limited her public concertizing and redirected her focus toward composition. Her subsequent catalog heavily favored the piano, yielding technically demanding works like the Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, Op. 45, and character suites such as From Grandmother's Garden, Op. 97. She found vital artistic refuge at the MacDowell Colony, where she composed numerous nature-inspired keyboard works that integrated late-Romantic virtuosity with impressionistic color.
1885-1923Dora Pejačević
Dora Pejačević was a Croatian composer whose catalog of 106 compositions bridges late-Romanticism and early 20th-century modernism. Educated primarily through private instruction in Dresden and Munich, she introduced the orchestral song to Croatian music and composed the nation's first modern symphony (Symphony in F# minor, Op. 41) and piano concerto. Her music, which includes a vast body of lieder, piano miniatures, and chamber works, is characterized by highly expressive harmonies that shifted toward expressionism and distinct philosophical themes following her service as a wartime paramedic.
