MICHAEL TSCHAPPAT
From left, David Belkovski, Song Hee Lee and Andrew Gonzalez of Twelfth Night perform at Greenwood Gardens in Short Hills.
At Greenwood Gardens, there is no shortage of nature to enjoy. And with their signature performing arts series, there is plenty of culture to enjoy, too.
This season’s Music and Dance in the Garden series wrapped on Sept. 20 with Twelfth Night’s “Heaven and Earth” program of early music showcasing the Baroque ensemble’s gutsy and lively house style. The intimate concert, held under a tent on the terrace of the public garden and historic site in Short Hills, was the fourth and last of the jazz, dance and classical music series, which took place from May to September.
Doors opened early for concertgoers to stroll through the site’s terraced gardens, winding paths and courtly fountains, and to enjoy complimentary wine and cheese.
Connecting people with nature and the arts in a historic garden oasis is the cornerstone of Greenwood’s mission. “Being in a beautiful garden and listening to beautiful music just somehow connects people’s senses on so many different levels,” said Abby O’Neill, executive director since 2017, before the concert. “It’s a magical combination.”
Greenwood Gardens concerts, including this one, are always sold out. “It’s a chance to go experience the arts in a unique setting you wouldn’t ordinarily frequent,” said O’Neill.
Twelfth Night, a New York-based ensemble of early music specialists, played a thematically rich program on historical instruments. They were guest artists of Lyrica Chamber Music, a community chamber music series founded in 1987 that spans Baroque to modern. Carl R. Woodward, one of Greenwood’s long-serving trustees, is both president of Lyrica and a member of Lyrica’s partner venue, Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, where he sings in the choir. This was Lyrica’s third time collaborating with Greenwood since 2019.
MICHAEL TSCHAPPAT
David Belkovski of Twelfth Night performs at Greenwood Gardens.
In introductory remarks, Lyrica’s co-artistic director David Kaplan called the Twelfth Night musicians “rock stars in their field.” He wasn’t exaggerating. Led by keyboardist and co-artistic director David Belkovski, they invoked a theatrical, Baroque ‘n’ roll spirit.
A vivid selection of 17th and 18th century Baroque composers took listeners on a varied and eclectic journey from Earth to Heaven and back again with sturdy playing, and the full-bodied vocalism of soprano Song Hee Lee.
They opened and closed with selections by Nicola Matteis, an Italian composer who was popular in his lifetime (1650–1713) but is rarely heard today. They began with his Suite in G Major, marked by a passionate Sarabanda and an energetic Aria Burlesca. Cadenzas felt natural and free flowing. Andrew Gonzalez on the violoncello da spalla used colorful instrumental techniques that included strumming and pizzicatos.
Handel’s Sonata in D Major showed off sensitive phrasing with toned trills from Belkovski on harpsichord, decisive portamento from Rebecca Nelson on violin and alluring intonation by Gonzalez. Strings were united, downplaying the exaggerated inequalities that can affect Baroque bow strokes. (Baroque bows are lighter at the tip and heavier at the frog, whereas modern bows are homogenized in their weight distribution.)
The musicians spoke between pieces about their specialized instruments and the merits of historically informed performances, doing their best to make the obscure art form more accessible.
While historically informed performances can lack the full interpretive power of modern instruments that today’s audiences have grown accustomed to, they often inspire freshness and experimentation. Baroque scores are slim on markings, which gives performers creative liberties. “There’s stuff you can make up on the go,” Nelson said, adding that no two performances ever sound the same.
MICHAEL TSCHAPPAT
Andrew Gonzalez of Twelfth Night performs at Greenwood Gardens.
Both Nelson and Gonzalez played on gut strings, as opposed to modern steel. Nelson explained that guts’ characteristics “speak really quickly. You don’t have to dig down much, so you can play really fast, but there’s also an edge and an honesty and a rawness to them.”
Fiddling with a folkish swagger, she excelled at carrying the fast and snappy English jig melodies of Purcell’s Scotch Tune from John Dryden’s play, “Amphitryon.” Belkovski’s harpsichord added twangy texture.
Gonzalez, who is also a violist, played on the rarely heard violoncello da spalla (translated from Italian to “shoulder cello”), which is worn over the chest with a strap and played on the shoulder. “It’s like if a viola and cello had a baby,” he joked. It has five strings, which, unlike the four-stringed cello, allows him to play different ornaments and also to play in the continuo section, something he can’t do as a violist.
His warmhearted, expressive style took the spotlight in Sonata in A Minor by Salvatore Lanzetti, a virtuoso Italian cellist of the 18th century. He traversed the full range of the instrument, from low and graveled to sweet and smokey, with quicksilver bowing and complex fingering.
Hee Lee sang in a powerful voice of warm and dark vocal timbres with a glowing middle. Program notes teased that her arias were aimed at “blurring the divide between the divine and mortal.”
In the first half she delved into morose and heartbreaking songs — Rameau’s “Il n’est plus d’alarmes” and a trio of Purcell including “Music for a While” — while the second half explored works written for angels and goddesses.
MICHAEL TSCHAPPAT
Song Hee Lee performs at Greenwood Gardens.
Standouts included two popular Handel songs: a saucy and bubbly “Endless pleasure, endless love,” a gavotte from “Semele” (1743) in which Semele is joyous in her role as Jupiter’s new mistress; and a fun and spirited “Tornami a vagheggiar,” the love aria from the opera seria “Alcina” (1735) sung as a feisty soubrette that showed off plenty of ornamentation.
A grounded finale brought things from the heavenly realms down to earth with the delightfully lyric cadences of Matteis’ “Ciaccona,” with lots of flair by Nelson and Gonzalez, and warm chemistry between the trio.
The performing arts series, now in its third season, was founded by the Birney family after Ceyan Birney approached Greenwood to create an event in remembrance of his mother, Leeshan, and his sister, Mayling, both of whom passed away in 2017. A lifelong resident of Short Hills, he and his two sisters ran through Greenwood’s fields and gardens as children. Ceyan now heads the series’ sponsor, Stone Mountain Properties, a family-owned and -operated property management company based in Short Hills that was founded by his late mother in 1981.
The inaugural performance in 2018 — which featured dancers from the Isadora Duncan Dance Company on the main lawn, who were invited back to perform at the series earlier this month — was so inspiring that Ceyan and his family wanted to support a seasonal performing arts series that would continue to honor the memory of his mother and sister, both of whom loved the arts and appreciated nature.
The series ties into Greenwood’s culture of preservation and legacy set down by the Blanchard family, who made it their home from 1949 to 2000. The “formal bones” of the site date back to the 1920s when the Day family lived there and much of it is well-preserved, down to the century-old, custom-designed Rookwood tiles.
“The history of this place is at the center of the interpretive work we do in support of visitation,” said O’Neill. “We gear all our efforts towards helping people understand the impact of the two families that lived on the site during the 20th century.”
Joseph P. Day, a real estate auctioneer from Manhattan, bought the property in 1906. After the original house was destroyed by a fire in 1911, he commissioned William Whetten Renwick to design Pleasant Days, a grand Italianate-style mansion with extensive formal gardens.
MICHAEL TSCHAPPAT
Rebecca Nelson of Twelfth Night performs at Greenwood Gardens.
Jazz repertoire is at the heart of the concert series’ programming to honor the estate’s legacy of being built during the Great Gatsby Era; this season included the AAPI Jazz Collective in May and the Vanessa Perea Quintet in July.
Day died in 1944 and the property languished until 1949, when it was bought by Peter P. Blanchard Jr. and his wife Adelaide. When Blanchard Jr. died in 2000, he stipulated in his will that Greenwood should not be sold for development and should be turned into a public garden.
With guidance from the Garden Conservatory, Peter P. Blanchard III and his wife Sofia A. Blanchard established it as a nonprofit in 2003. It offered private tours before opening to the public in 2013.
“To ready the site for public visitation, there was a range of necessary renovations needed, including creating a parking lot and public restrooms; making parts of the main house ADA accessible; and redoing the retaining wall around the main lawn and the first tier of the garden,” O’Neill said of the period from 2003 to 2013.
The Blanchards’ philosophy of preservation continues to shape much of what Greenwood does for the broader public good. In 2016, as a guest columnist for The Star-Ledger, Peter P. Blanchard III described why his family donated the site to New Jersey: “We gain great fulfillment from protecting this place for ourselves and for others.”
“I liken the Blanchard’s vision to the anonymous proverb that says, ‘Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in,’ ” said O’Neill.
Peter P. Blanchard III passed away in 2022 but his legacy as an artist, preservationist and conservationist remains. There is a lecture series named after him; fanciful sculpture he adored is on display throughout the property; and many of his paintings are hung in the main house, a 1950s Georgian Revival estate where he grew up.
The concert series is one of Greenwood’s 50 programs (including tours, workshops, lectures and more) scheduled for the current season.
The concert series paused during the pandemic, coinciding with a large construction and landscaping project from 2019 to 2020 that closed the site to the public. By the time it reopened, the dynamic of indoor gatherings had changed, which gave O’Neill the opportunity to reassess Greenwood’s programming space at the time: the living room in the main estate that holds about 35 people.
“It was clear we needed outdoor space to be able to accommodate a larger number for our programming,” she said.
In 2022, the idea of offering the performing arts programming under an outdoor tent gained traction, and a dedicated performance pavilion was erected on the west terrace overlooking the main lawn and the fields beyond.
O’Neill is in her seventh season with Greenwood and is one of 12 employees. “We do everything here as a team; kind of like an orchestra where all the instruments must play together for the piece to come out sounding the way it should sound,” she said.
For more on Greenwood Gardens, visit greenwoodgardens.org.
CONTRIBUTE TO NJARTS.NET
Since launching in September 2014, NJArts.net, a 501(c)(3) organization, has become one of the most important media outlets for the Garden State arts scene. And it has always offered its content without a subscription fee, or a paywall. Its continued existence depends on support from members of that scene, and the state’s arts lovers. Please consider making a contribution of any amount to NJArts.net via PayPal, or by sending a check made out to NJArts.net to 11 Skytop Terrace, Montclair, NJ 07043.
