Last week, Mara, Marina, composer Gabrielle Herbst, and I went to the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen, New Hampshire, a magical place where musicians and composers can have the time and space to work, not to mention delicious meals for sustenance. We were there specifically for the New Music Initiative, a program directed by Hannah Collins and Michael Compitello of New Morse Code, which focuses exclusively on ensemble/composer collaborations. The facilities were pristine, the landscape was beautiful, and the people were so lovely. We were truly lucky to have the opportunity to work with Gabi in this idyllic setting!

During our group work sessions, Gabi led improvisations that opened up the weird and strange possibilities that could come out of our instruments and our vocal cords. I don’t want to give too much away, but after this, I’m so excited to hear what Gabi creates. In addition to writing classical music, she composes short-form, vocal-centric compositions under the name GABI. If you aren’t familiar with her work yet, you can see her opera Bodiless online here and listen to (and buy!) her album, Sympathy, here.

Big thanks to Dr. Fred Tauber and Deborah Scherr of Avaloch for making such a unique place exist! And we’re also grateful to Hannah and Michael for being so receptive to our proposal.

Here are some photos. We don’t have as many in the studio because we were focused on work and rarely took our phones out, which was a refreshing change from our usual day-to-day.

Picking blueberries at the blueberry patch!

This is where we took our meals. Beautiful right?!

Our suite! Was it a French suite? an English suite? It was definitely a SWEET suite!

Wish admin work could be like this everyday...

Oh right forgot to mention we made a short "film." Coming soon to an Instagram feed near you!

Rocking out in one of our Gabi-led improv sessions. Photo: Gabrielle Herbst

This was cool. Too bad we couldn't go inside.

Shortcut path to our parking spot. We miss you already, Avaloch!

Last Thursday, we hosted a tour of the FIT Museum’s Fairy Tale Fashion exhibition to kick off a new initiative we’re launching called the NCP Arts Council. (We’ll be sharing more on this soon…subscribe to our newsletter to be in the know!) Curator Colleen Hill was our guide, pointing out details on each garment and accessory and sharing with us her thought process during the creation of the exhibition: some pieces were directly inspired by fairy tales, while other pieces were selected because they were reminiscent of sartorial references in certain tales. Surprisingly, we learned that the way we perceive iconic garments in these tales are quite different from the original story, for instance: Little Red Riding Hood originally wore a cap knitted by her grandmother rather than a cape; Dorothy’s shoes were actually silver, not ruby red; and Cinderella’s ugly step sisters were actually kind of hot.

The pieces in the exhibition were stunning and we were so impressed. Needless to say, we had a great time. We got to see (drool over?) some imaginative high fashion while gathering with friends, familiar and new. We’ve also decided that NCP needs to go on more field trips.

And now…pictures galore!

Our First Residency: Avaloch

Friends, Fashion, and Fairy Tales