Elderflora is a 60-minute electro-acoustic song cycle on the life and death of a tree. Created by composer-performer Majel Connery and performed by Connery and Felix Fan (cello), Elderflora crosses Classical harmonies and electronic soundscapes to evoke the tree’s inner world. Narrated from the tree’s perspective, Elderflora invites us on a journey inside the mind of nature, experiencing the tree’s thoughts and feelings in vivid detail.
Elderflora blends old sounds with new technology, with snatches of madrigals and hymns blowing through electronic soundscapes like wind through leaves. Structured as a series of 10 musical portraits, each movement represents a significant moment in the life of the tree: birth by fire, the first taste of water, and nature’s most dangerous proposition: becoming a mother.
“I want us to see humanity in the world around us,” says Connery. “Music gives me the power to join what we know with what we don’t know: to combine the familiar with the strange. Because if trees have a voice — and I think they do — that voice won’t sound like us. They’re going to sound utterly out of this world.”
Click here to listen to Majel’s music and watch videos.
Photo by Carlin Ma
MAJEL CONNERY (vocals, synths) is a composer, vocalist and roving musicologist elevating classical music with the power of modern technology. Her voice has been called “superb” by the New York Times and her compositions “thoroughly Schubertian” by the Wall Street Journal. Connery’s environmental song cycle “The Rivers are our Brothers” has been toured and recorded by Grammy-winning choir, Chanticleer. As a musciologist Connery hosts “A Music of Their Own” on NPR and “Reverberations” for New Amsterdam Records.
Photo by Carlin Ma
FELIX FAN (cello) has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Janos Starker in venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Musikverein and Royal Festival Hall. Fan’s collaborators include many of today’s leading composers from Philip Glass to Michael Gordon, Hans Werner Henze, Oliver Knussen, David Lang, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Kaija Saariaho, Tan Dun, Julia Wolfe and Charles Wuorinen. Beyond Classical music, Fan has performed with Sonic Youth, Sigur Ros, Wilco and The National and appears regularly with FLUX Quartet.