Elderflora

Elderflora will be performed at ARTSLab on Friday, October 18th, from 5:30 – 6:30 PM. Tickets are free and required for entry, please register below. ARTSLab is located on the northwest corner of Central Ave. and University Blvd., at 131 Pine Street NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106.

Elderflora is the story of the life of a tree. 

From birth by fire to death by lightning, we follow this ancient being’s inner thoughts and feelings in hyperreal detail. Told from the perspective of the tree itself, Elderflora (“old trees”) conjures a world where trees can talk to us. 

Written by vocalist and composer Majel Connery, the music of Elderflora combines the earthy tones of cello (played by Felix Fan) with Connery’s lush electronic vocal manipulations. Her work mixes the beauty of a distant Classical past with the power of modern technology in a soundscape both natural and supernatural.

“Trees are a lot like people, and this is their superpower.” says Connery. “They have skin. They can bruise, and bleed. They’re also giants among us doing supernatural stuff. I want us to see trees for what they are — familiar, and utterly out of this world.”

Elderflora is dedicated to the message of Chief Oren Lyons of Onondaga Nation, Member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy. It tours fall 2024 with video and images by American photographer Noah Kalina.

Majel Connery

Majel Connery is a composer, performer, podcaster and musicologist. Her music has been called “superb” by the New York Times and “thoroughly Schubertian” by the Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on Radiolab, Kennedy Center Live, and New Sounds radio.

The Rivers are our Brothers, Connery’s song cycle on ecological responsibility, was commissioned by Musica Sierra and is being toured by Grammy-winning choir Chanticleer. This fall, Connery toured Rivers as a duo with electric cellist Felix Fan in the Southwest, in Italy, and returns in the spring to Ohio and California with Australian duo Bowerbird.

Connery is the host and producer of A Music of Their Own, an interview podcast on NPR about women in the music industry. She appears frequently as a solo artist, and with NYC-based art-rock band, Sky Creature.