“Music at the Farm” Concerts

Columbian tenor David Rivera Bozon and pianist Leona Cheung, both artists in residence at the Music at the Farm concerts, will perform Sunday April 11th at 2PM. They will perform arias by Mozart, Flotow, Catan, Bizet, Verdi & Puccini, Neapolitan songs by Eduardo Di Capua and Broadway songs by Bernstein, Forrest, and Appell. These concerts are presented by Grace Note Farm and the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council. Complying with covid restrictions the audiences are small, spaced 6 feet apart. and asked to wear masks.

Artists in residence violinist David Bernat and pianist  Jiarong Li will perform Debussy, Strauss, Prokofiev, Sarasate and a Chinese work. Violinist David Bernat is a C.V Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School, where he studies with Joseph Lin, and is a graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Soovin Kim. He was recently featured on the BBC Radio 3 program, In Tune, and at WQXR’s Greene Space as part of Juilliard’s annual ChamberFest. As soloist, David has performed concertos with the Ft. Dodge Symphony and Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, and is a 3rd Prize winner of the 2020 World Bach Competition hosted by the Boulder Bach Festival and a semi-finalist of the 2018 Hudson Valley String Competition.

In past summers, David was a fellow at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and has attended Tanglewood Music Center, where he was concertmaster of the TMC Orchestra and a member of the New Fromm Players, performing in masterclasses for artists such as Sarah Chang, Pamela Frank, Colin Carr, and members of the Juilliard, Borromeo and Brentano String Quartets, and worked with conductors including Andris Nelsons, Herbert Blomstedt, Ivan Fischer, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff, and Bramwell Tovey.  

David has had frequent opportunities to collaborate and perform music by some of the leading living composers, having worked closely with Thomas Ades, John Adams, John Harbison, Augusta Read Thomas, Fred Lerdahl, and George Walker. David continues to be committed to expanding community access to classical music, and has twice been a fellow of New England Conservatory’s Community Performance and Partnerships program.

Chinese Pianist Jiarong Li enjoys sharing music with the community and believes music is a powerful language we all understand. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Manhattan School of Music, where she studies with John Forconi. Jiarong holds a Master of Music from New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she was admitted with first place. Her former teachers includes Heasook Rhee, Pei-Shan Lee, Bruce Brubaker, and Xiang Zou.

She has won prizes at competitions including first prize in the Oxford Philomusica Piano Festival and Summer Academy Competition, the New England Conservatory Honors Competition, the International Music Competition-Best Schubert Performance, the Distinction Award of the Hong Kong-Asia Piano Open Competition, and was a finalist at New England Conservatory Piano Concerto Competition, semi-finalist at Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts International Concerto Competition, and a collaborative piano fellow at Bowdoin Music Festival.

Artists in Residence:
David Bernat, violin
David Rivera Bozon, tenor
Leona Cheung, piano
Jiarong Li, piano
Victor Main, guitar/composer

True to its Historic Roots

Grace Note Farm, also known as the Benjamin Smith homestead farm c. 1730, is nestled in the northwest corner of Rhode Island adjacent to the George Washington Management area.

Catering to Equestrians

Riders can enjoy over six hours of riding on wide, mostly sandy trails that connect to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Trails wind through a covered bridge, hemlock grove and pass picturesque lakes and streams. You can ride alone on the well marked trails, or join a guide. Over 25 miles are safe for carriages.

Guests bring their own horses and can stay one or more nights on their own or in groups of up to 8 people. The stalls are airy and there is plenty of turnout in the rolling pastures or corrals surrounding the farm. Grace Note Farm welcomes group rides, and offers breakfast or lunch. The farm hosts parties for horse enthusiasts.