Bloom: Autumn Reflections
Music for Cello and Piano
October 4 | 4:00 PM | Faraway Farm Alpacas | Yorktown Heights, NY
BLOOM: Autumn Reflections explores how natural landscapes evolve over time, tracing the arc of the garden from peak bloom into memory. This program pairs two early 20th-century floral cycles with contemporary responses to our changing environment.
Performers:
Kathryn Felt, piano
Julia Henderson, cello
Featured Works
Lili Boulanger, Noturne (1911)
Andrea Casarrubios, Silbo (2021)
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
…and more repertoire to be announced
Featured Artist:
Julia Henderson, cello
Recent performances have found cellist Julia Henderson at Disney Hall, National Sawdust, Bargemusic, Jazz at Lincoln Center, MoMA PS1, and elsewhere. Julia is active both as a chamber musician and orchestral player, and frequently performs and premiers works of living composers. She can be heard on composer Finola Merivale’s debut album “Tús,” Buck McDaniel’s “The Chelsea Preludes,” and numerous other classical and non-classical recordings. Julia performs regularly with the Halcyon String Quartet and NYC-based Contemporaneous, and is a member of the New Haven Symphony and Sarasota Opera Orchestras. As a soloist, she was featured most recently with COSMIC Symphony performing Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. In addition to performing, Julia teaches at the Trinity School in NYC and is on faculty at Point Counterpoint and Envision summer festivals. She holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the Juilliard School.
Concerts are held in The Barn at Faraway Farm Alpacas (1307 Baptist Church Rd, Yorktown Heights, NY).
Transportation: Faraway Farm Alpacas is accessible from New York City via Metronorth, from Grand Central to Croton-on-Hudson. The farm is a 15 minute uber from Croton-on-Hudson station.
Parking: Available onsite for free.
Accessibility: The Barn is accessible, and designated paths for the farm tour can accommodate mobility devices. Please contact us for specific accommodation requests.
Sustainability Initiative: Those arriving by carpool (3+) receive a compost token from the farm, and all audiences receive a complimentary packet of seeds.
Post Concert Tour of the Farm: You are invited to tour Faraway Farm after the concert concludes.
About BLOOMBloom explores two remarkable 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. BLOOM: Autumn Reflections expands the program to include works for cello and piano and contemporary responses to landscapes.
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.
