When Piano by Nature was founded in 2008, we knew that we would one day find a way to create a literal harmony between the great Adirondack wild and a live outdoor musical experience, adding depth and meaning to this unique place that so many of us call home.
And by changing one little word, ‘by’ to ‘in’, we are ready to embark upon the more literal meaning. On Saturday, June 29th at 5:00PM Piano in Nature and Champlain Area Trails (CATS) will once again present an exciting outdoor concert unlike any others and this time we are calling it ‘The Music of Nature.’
Together we will celebrate our many connections to the natural surroundings of the Adirondacks with kinship, food, and of course, music!
A Message from our Artistic Director
One of the great joys of being the Artistic Director of Piano by Nature is getting to explore imaginative concepts for our concerts, ones that are creatively satisfying for our guest artists and interesting and enjoyable for you, our incredible North Country community.
One of the ideas that has lingered all these years has been the dream of placing a grand piano in a more rugged, outdoor Adirondack setting for a concert. In 2023, this dream came true when pianist Ben Cosgrove came and blew us all away in Essex at the CATS Quarry Nature Preserve with the resonant sounds of an acoustic piano combined with a rustling of leaves, an impressive bullfrog chorus, and the whir of the wind (quite a whir), under a canopy of trees with fluffy clouds and dappled rays of sun. This idea turned out so splendidly, in fact, that we decided to do it again.
The CATS Essex Quarry Nature Preserve site is a trail and also a gorgeous outdoor amphitheater of natural elements with visible marks of human interaction. Formed of giant slabs of blue stone along with cut marks and shaped blocks from the mason’s decades of work, this area seems tailor-made for awe. Cut-stone benches define the edges of the enclosed space with a delightful soundscape of frogs, birds aplenty, and a flat spot just perfect to use as a stage. The ideal spot to once again showcase cascading arpeggios and the powerful aural presence of a grand piano played ‘in harmony’ with the natural elements completely surrounding it.
Come hear pianist Ben Cosgrove’s compelling compositions at the CATS Essex Quarry Nature Preserve on Saturday, June 29th at 5:00PM. Ben will take us on his special one-of-a-kind musical journey, completely unique to this location and season. On Sunday, June 30th at 3:00PM, you can also hear him in the indoor elegance of the Hand House in Elizabethtown where Ben will create something equally awe-inspiring and unique. Both concerts will explore ways in which music can help to create a sense of belonging, and will also share the love of music (and the piano) by and in nature.
-Rose
The first Piano in Nature concert was featured in a Lake Champlain Weekly article entitled “The Revolutionary” in 2023. Here is a terrific article written by the esteemed Benjamin Pomerance of the Lake Champlain Weekly.
Click the images in the gallery to enlarge or download/view a PDF version here.
In order for this very special piano concert to happen, we have joined forces with three superstar area organizations: Chris Maron of Champlain Area Trails (CATS), Chris Rawson of Rawson Family Pianos, and Triple Green Jade Farm and TRIGO. CATS has generously given us the green light to present pianist Ben Cosgrove at the Essex Quarry Nature Preserve, performing on a grand piano supplied by Chris Rawson of Rawson Family Pianos in Plattsburgh. Exceptional homemade cookies will be generously provided courtesy of TRIGO in Westport (a part of Triple Green Jade Farm). Get there early—they will go fast!
About the Artist
Ben Cosgrove (www.bencosgrove.com) regularly travels across the United States performing a unique variety of original instrumental music that explores themes of landscape, geography, and environment while straddling a line between folk and classical music. Cosgrove’s unique position as a musician is suspended somewhere between genres: “I’m either a singer-songwriter who doesn’t sing, or I’m a composer who behaves like a singer-songwriter,” he has said, and his chatty, disarming stage presence would certainly make him seem more like a folk musician than a classical pianist. In his compositions he utilizes field recordings, innovative arrangements, and elegantly interwoven melodies to evoke deserts, wilderness lakes, prairies, mountain ranges, coastlines, and sprawling suburbs all in turn. In one piece, swirling arpeggios capture the disorientation of a fast drive across the plains; in another, murmuring dissonances suggest the swell of the tide. His “electric and exhilarating” live performances are at once dazzling and intimate: music that has been described as “stunning” and “compelling and beautiful,” — Red Line Roots has called him “stupidly talented” — all presented with “warmth, humor, honesty, and the easy familiarity of a troubadour.”
Throughout his career, the strongest forces guiding Ben’s composition and performances have been his deep and abiding interests in landscape, geography, place, and environment. For years, he has been fascinated and inspired by the different ways people understand and interact with the landscapes around them, and through songs with names like “Prairie Fire,” “The Machine in the Garden,” “Little Rain,” “Nashua,” “Champlain,” “Sigurd F. Olson,” “Kennebec,” and others, he seeks to explore those relationships and reflect them in sound. “I don’t think of my pieces as rendering places in music,” he once remarked in an interview in Harvard Magazine, “but more just as a way of responding to places musically. Writing music just turns out to be a great way for me to process the world.”
For more information, visit www.bencosgrove.com
Concert Info
June 29th Quarry Concert Info
The June 29th concert will start at 5:00PM at the CATS Essex Quarry Trail just outside of Essex, NY, on Lakeshore Road. (Address: 2215 Lake Shore Road, Essex, NY 12936.) Do bring water, blankets or low chairs to sit on, bug spray, sunblock, and shades in hopes of a sunny day. PBN and CATS will request donations, accepting cash and/or checks at the site and for your convenience, we will also welcome donations in advance by making a payment to PBN via PayPal on our website.
PBN will be sharing the proceeds of our profits with the CATS organization, so your ticket price will be doing double-duty for this event in support of these two organizations. And Triple Green Jade Farm will round out the trio by generously providing their locally produced, home-baked cookies for the event.
We encourage concert goers to park in the town lot across from the ferry if walking is not a concern. Those who may need to park closer to the site may park throughout the town of Essex. There is very little parking in the Quarry lot and we would like to keep it open for people with disabilities, so please plan ahead for parking in town, carpooling when possible. Thanks so much. PBN and CATS volunteers will also be present to help direct traffic. Come early to grab the best seat or slab! No reservations are required for this concert—there will be plenty of slabs for all!
In case of rain on June 29th, the Essex Community Church has graciously offered to let us use the church sanctuary as our backup location. The 5:00PM concert time will remain the same if the location must change due to weather. Parking will be available at the ferry dock and along the street throughout Essex. Please visit www.pianobynature.org or call 518-962-8899 for up-to-date information. Please use this cell number closer to the date: 518-578-2081.
Sunday, June 30th Concert at the Hand House
If you cannot attend Saturday’s outdoor event, we are offering another concert the following day, Sunday, June 30th at 3:00PM at the Hand House Parlor in Elizabethtown, our traditional concert venue. Following the concert, we will enjoy a sumptuous reception for Ben Cosgrove.
Reservations for the Sunday performance can be made in advance by calling 518-962-8899 or emailing us at pianobynature@gmail.com. Tickets will be available at the door for cash or check, though you can also pay online by making a donation to PBN via PayPal on our website. Doors will open at 2:30PM.
Please consider sending a donation to Piano by Nature to help us continue to support our artists and deliver exceptional live music to the North Country and beyond. You can mail a check to Piano by Nature, 32 Champlain Ave., Westport, NY 12993. Or donate online through the Donate button below (using your Paypal account or credit card). If you have questions or ideas, feel free to call Rose at 518.962.8899. I’d love to hear from you.
Piano By Nature’s programs are made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts. We are also supported by the Essex County Arts Council’s Cultural Assistance Program Grant with funding provided by Essex County. And we’d also like to thank our many patrons and donors for their generous contributions over the past 16 years—you are keeping live music ‘alive’ in the North Country!