Grace Farms celebrated a transformative weekend on January 10-11 with the launch of its innovative Lecture with Concert series. Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms, delivered the inaugural lecture. The following day, Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Solon Gordon performed to a sold-out crowd of 700 in Grace Farms’ Sanctuary, the world’s only fully-enclosed glass performing arts space. It is the first time Yo-Yo Ma and Solon Gordon have performed a recital together.
The Grace Farms Lecture with Concert series introduces a new concept in which music and ideas converge in dialogue with one another. Grace Farms’ Artist-in-Residence and renown cellist Arlen Hlusko curates each concert as a direct response to the lecturer’s life’s work.
On January 10, Prince opened the series by sharing her remarkable journey and determination to create a boundary-defying space that is free and open to the public, nurtures grace and peace, and connects people to achieve new outcomes. Since opening ten years ago, Grace Farms has welcomed one million visitors to encounter nature, arts, justice, community, and faith.
“We all build – our homes, our families, our work and our future. Consider grace and peace as you build,” said Prince in her lecture. “We have tremendous agency to participate in creating a more just, equitable world through how we build and which values we prioritize.”
Prince’s lecture was followed by a specially curated chamber music performance featuring an ensemble of 13 extraordinary musicians, including MacArthur Fellows, GRAMMY nominees, Avery Fisher career grant recipients, and Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipients: Jennifer Frautschi, Vijay Gupta, Blake Pouliot & Michelle Ross, violins; Ayane Kozasa & Melissa Reardon, violas; Gabriel Cabezas & Arlen Hlusko, cellos; Anthony Manzo, bass; Pallavi Mahidhara, piano; Emi Ferguson, flute; Yoonah Kim, clarinet; and Gina Cuffari, bassoon. The artists were selected by Hlusko to express the theme of ingenuity that has defined Prince’s remarkable career and life’s work.
The weekend culminated on Sunday, January 11 with a sold-out recital by Yo-Yo Ma and Solon Gordon, accompanied by the backdrop of nature and Grace Farms’ 80 acres of landscape visible behind the performance.
The recital program included Five Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102 (Robert Schumann), Cello Sonata, L. 135 (Claude Debussy), 4 Romantic Pieces (Antonín Dvořák), The Hanging Garden (Branford Marsalis), and Sonata in A Major for Violin & Piano (César Franck).
“These programs were uniquely designed for Grace Farms in response to this landscape, architecture, and season. The Music at Grace Farms concert series, including this past weekend’s performance by Yo-Yo Ma, creates shared gatherings that reveal humanity’s potential to inspire one another. Through the connection to the land and to eachother, we can find deeper meaning and a shared commitment to create a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world,” said Founding Creative Director Chelsea Thatcher. Thatcher developed the Lecture with Concert and Music at Grace Farms series as part of Grace Farms’ 10-year anniversary celebration, centered on the theme “We all build.”
The Grace Farms Lecture with Concert series will continue throughout 2026, bringing together world-renowned thinkers and musicians in this innovative format that recognizes the intersection of transformative ideas and art. Dr. Miroslav Volf, leading religious thinker and Founding Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and New York Times bestselling author, will give the remaining two lectures on February 7 and March 7, respectively.
The string quartet performing February 7 are Adrian Anantawan, violin, who has performed at the Athens and Vancouver Olympic Games, Lun Li, violin, Arlen Hlusko, cello, and Celia Hatton, viola. They will perform works including Arvo Pärt: Fratres. The flute quartet performing March 7 features Alex Sopp, flute, Simone Porter & Owen Dalby, violins; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; and Arlen Hlusko, cello. In response to Kimmerer’s work, this musical program features composers who often derive musical inspiration from their relationships with nature, including Mozart, Paul Wiancko, Gabriella Smith, Leilehua Anne Lanzilotti, Reena Esmail, Valerie Coleman, and Joan Tower.
