Medieval French Songs of Fate, Fortune & Fin’ amor

Music by Guillelme de Machaut and a selection of troubadour and trouvère songs featuring Concordian Dawn Medieval Ensemble: Amber Evans, soprano and percussion; Clifton Massey, countertenor; Niccolo Seligmann, vielle and percussion; Christopher Preston Thompson, director, tenor and medieval harp.

This redaction of Machaut’s Le Remede de Fortune begins within a 14th-century French court.  Typical of the French Romance genre, a main character retreats to a vegetation-filled garden to isolate himself from everyone else. A personified Esperance visits him while in this garden. Then the hero returns to court. The lyrical narrative and themes of the French Romance are only fitting to a garden such as the Landcraft Garden. The main illuminated manuscript that transmits the piece is full of the same gorgeous garden images that make LGF.

We invite the audience to arrive at 4:00pm to visit the garden and enjoy the beauty of the natural landscape. The concert is at 5:00pm outdoors on the main lawn of the Landcraft Garden. Lawn chairs will be available.  It is highly recommended to bring a hat to cover yourself from the sun while waiting for sunset.  Dress appropriately for the weather.

A tasting menu presented by the chef Martine Abitbol with several bite-sized dishes will be served immediately after the concert. The tasting menu is inspired by the Medieval Culinary degustation with a focus to the flavors of the earth and culinary art.

​Music Program

Repertoire, all from medieval French manuscripts, including Trouvère songs (13th century), Medieval instrumental dances (13th century), and
Ars antiqua polyphonic motets (13th century)

Le Remède de Fortune by Guillaume de Machaut (1300-77)
* Lay, “Qui n’aroit autre deport”
* Complainte, “Tels rit au main qui au soir pleure”
* Chant Royale, “Joye, plaisance, et douce nourreture”
* Balladelle, “En amer a douce vie”
* Ballade, “Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient”
* Virelai, “Dame, a vous sans retollir”
* Rondelet, “Dame, mon cuer en vous remaint”

The spoken word is one of the earliest forms of human art. Alone, without theatrics, it can be so many things. Sometimes it is direct, powerful, punctuated; sometimes it is veiled, coy, or sublime.  It can uplift, refresh and invigorate; or it can humble, crush and condemn.  When crafted by a poet, the nuances of language and its delivery can expose truths hard to express otherwise that are fundamental to the human experience. Join us and feel the power of nature and poetry while celebrating the gift of three guest poets, each reciting poems in the Garden at Landcraft. Additional poetry will be hung in the Garden’s Rondels for a limited-time meditative experience of language in a symbolic setting. Light refreshments to be served prior to reading. 

Jill Bialosky‘s newest volume of poetry, Asylum: A Personal, Historical, Natural Inquiry in 103 Lyric Sections, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. She is the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry, three critically acclaimed novels, including The Prize and most recently The Deceptions, and a two memoirs, Poetry Will Save Your Life and New York Times bestselling memoir History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life. Her poems and essays have appeared in such journals as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, O Magazine, The Kenyon Review, and Best American Poetry. She is an Executive Editor and Vice President at W. W. Norton & Company. In 2014 she was honored by the Poetry Society of America for her distinguished contribution to poetry.

Kimiko Hahn is the author of eleven collections, including the forthcoming The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems. Her most recent honor is the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from The Poetry Foundation. In 2022 Hahn was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Hahn is a distinguished professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at Queens College, The City University of New York. In her service to the field, she enjoys promoting chapbooks and created a chapbook archive in the college library.

Anne Marie Macari is the author of five books of poems, most recently Red Deer (Persea, 2015) and Heaven Beneath (Persea, 2020). Her book Ivory Cradle was chosen by Robert Creeley for the APR/Honickman first book prize and she is the recipient of other honors including the James Dickey Prize from Five Points Magazine. Macari founded and directed the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation. Her essays and poems have appeared widely in magazines, including The American Poetry Review and The Iowa Review.

This experience is made possible by generous contributions from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and Meadowlark North Fork.

AGE: For Adult Audiences

WEATHER: Rain or Shine.

SPECIAL NOTES: Dress appropriately for the weather. To be a source of healthy insects for our birds and other insect-feeding wildlife, we do not spray the gardens to manage ticks. Please take appropriate caution.

REGISTRATION: Required. Buy Now. Limited seating