Dear Friends,

These are not calm times. Politics, Economics, Ecology, everything is in motion, demanding brilliant thought and inspiring profound concern. Can you think of a time in history more engaging and challenging than today? Can you think of a time when music and art, beauty and creativity, were as imperative to help us focus values and to remind us about our capabilities to make the right decisions?

Four Nations’ Hudson River Harvest Concerts offer three events in which you are invited to move from the fields of battle to the Elysian ones! This year our hosts and their barns and homes will delight you. The locations and views are inspiring and the music will mirror the season in all its beauty. The food by Susan Lawrence will be, as always, delicious.

In Elisabeth and Alfred Scott’s Paladian Barn nestled high above the Hudson Valley, overlooking the Catskill Mountains, we present a program from Four Nations’ Leclair Project. While preparing a series of recordings of his work, the Ensemble will place Jean Marie Leclair’s sensual and devilishly difficult music next to the composers who inspired and competed with him (Locatelli and Mondonville).

In October we bring the theater music of Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel into the Dutch Barn of Paul and Mary Spencer. English theater is amazing and the music written for Restoration Comedy by Purcell is equally thrilling. Finally, and for the first time, we ask a host, Lisa Lancaster to be our guest artist! A brilliant cellist with a magnificent new house inspired by barns and castles, she will join us with pianist Steven Beck in a program of the two Viennese Schools. We will play Haydn and Mozart. She and Steven will play Brahms and Webern.

Our flyer this year, created by the delightful illustrator Jackie Rogers, is an evocation of over-mantles and property maps of the early 19th century. It dances with the joy of the season and echoes our delight in playing for you.

Click here for information about the entire series.

Best regards,

Andrew Appel