Arazzo Music Festival

Arazzo Music Festival at Wadsworth Atheneum

Danielle and Cordelia at the Arazzo Music Festival posing in front of Venus with Nymph and Satyr, a sculpture completed in the 14th century at intermission.

The last meeting I planned for my community in June 2026 was the finale concert to the Season 5 Arazzo Music Festival. The final program, "Roots Reimagined" was a two-hour concert performed by the Callisto Quartet and held at the Morgan Great Hall at The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. And it was 100% free to attend. All you needed to do was pre-register on The Wadsworth's website and show up at the appointed time. 

Cordelia and I both play the cello, although Cordelia started learning cello as a child and has played entire pieces as part of an orchestra. I'm an experimental hobbyist cellist. I started as an adult learner in my mid twenties and learned as much as 5th hand position, but not quite a grasp of treble clef as far as my playing ability. I have a high quality pick-up, portable bass amplifier, a vibrato guitar effect pedal and a looping pedal. I record parts that I play 100% by ear and through a general vibe/feeling and layer them over each other with the looping pedal. I have never been in an orchestra, but I was in an Experimental Band once. But the point of all this is that we both appreciate live string music and can talk about it to each other like true critics about the program choices, cohesive playing of the group, intonation, etc, that goes beyond the average classical enjoyer. Aly also attended this meeting, but we didn't get a group shot with her because she had to sneak out during intermission due to my mistake of the length of the program.

The program started off with Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No.5. (If you click on the title of the piece, I have included a YouTube link to a different quartet playing each piece, as Callisto Quartet doesn't have this program on their YouTube.) This piece is approximately 26 minutes long, and is one of Beethoven's earlier works. Cordelia and I thought it was a "safe" opener for the program, something people who listen to Classical music would recognize right away. A crowd favorite if you will. 

They followed with Reena Esmail's Ragamala, which is a modern composition created in 2013 that weaves together the traditions of Hindustani and Western Classical music. It starts off with a slow sweeping and undulating droning of the instruments, which is often how I start my own experimental compositions. One of the members of the quartet described the first and third measures to be like this, while the second and fourth measures were far more lively and celebratory sounding with lots of double stops and plucking (playing without the bow). I knew I instantly liked it, but what would Cordelia the trained classical cellist think? She thought it was bold and interesting!

After intermission, they concluded with Edvard Grieg's String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27. This composition has been described as having a complex depth of feeling and runs just over 36 minutes. Cordelia already assumed that they would have played this piece and said afterwards, "You can never go wrong with Grieg". To me it was the perfect conclusion, especially because we watched it being performed at the end of June during the Cancer zodiac season. In fact, the depth of emotion that I was hoping to hear in this evening's performances was what inspired my coordinate!

Danielle's bold but dark mermaid/wave inspired coordinate

This concert occurred just a few days before my actual birthday, so I am also a Cancer sun sign. You can expect my moods to change as frequently as those in Grieg's piece above. Now I hadn't worn this dress for about three years because it's kind of dramatic. The navy chiffon material has streaks of silver throughout it, and an embroidered shell on the bodice with a chain of pearls that hang delicately between the black lace trims in the design. Then the skirt is a layering of several petals of the same translucent chiffon material that catch the light just like scales of a fish. There's an additional bow trailing that I've pinned on one side. I didn't always have the matching headpiece, but it truly ties the coordinate together, no matter the additional accessories one chooses. To be a bit more mermaid-like, I put on an apricot colored princess sleeve mesh blouse under it (like the inside of a shell). I repeated the mesh in my choice of arm warmers. I intentionally wanted the rhinestones to look like beads of water sitting on top of my skin. Of course I had to wear fancy black FISHNET tights to go with all the mesh in the upper half. Then I chose ivory shoes to repeat the lighter color of the blouse. Additional accessories include a necklace made out of a shell with clay gold tentacles coming around the sides and back of the piece, and an ivory and light brown string instrument bag. Cordelia agrees with me that its not a violin and at best that it is a viola or a very small cello. 

Up close detail of my makeup and accessories

Outside selfie. Apparently I was also wearing a lace and pearl choker and pearl earrings.

Cordelia took this photo of Pahl and I at intermission. Pahl was growing out his facial hair for our next costumed event a few days later.

Wearing this coordinate in front of an active fountain depicting the goddess Venus with a Nymph and Satyr seemed about right for the beautiful but possibly dangerous mermaid vibe I was going for.  I don't know if it was the fountain or not, but this area of the museum had AMAZING acoustics as well. 10/10 would recommend any concert in this space, but a string quartet takes the cake!