For Immediate Release
Contact: Cohn Dutcher Associates
Lois Cohn, 917.339.7187, lcohn@cohndutcher.com
Dan Dutcher, 917.339.7157, ddutcher@cohndutcher.com
Laura Malick, 917.339.7183, lmalick@cohndutcher.com
David Mayhew, 203.533.5621, david@davidmayhew.net

The Living Violin has greeted visitors to the past two summer festivals. Created by Caramoor's
horticulturalist, Clifford Dickson, it is constructed from plants cultivated in Caramoor's gardens.

FACTS ABOUT CARAMOOR

What is Caramoor?
Caramoor, a beautiful and bucolic 90-acre estate less than an hour from Manhattan, is home to Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts and metropolitan New York's largest annual outdoor music festival:  the Caramoor International Music Festival, beginning its 64th summer season in 2009.

Every summer, amid its fragrant gardens and towering trees, Caramoor's two outdoor theatres - the Venetian Theater and the Spanish Courtyard - resonate with the glorious sounds of orchestral music, Bel Canto opera, chamber music, jazz, Latin music, and American music from banjo to pop, performed by the world's finest artists.

Caramoor is also known for its year-round concerts, lectures, and arts-in-educational programs as well as for he Rosen House at Caramoor, an historic house filled with centuries-old visual and decorative arts that is open to the public as a museum.

Why "Caramoor"?
Walter Tower Rosen and his wife, Lucie Bigelow Dodge Rosen, purchased the former estate of Caroline Moore - hence "Caramoor" - in 1928.  With their love for the existing Italianate gardens, it could not have been lost on the Rosens that cara means "dear" and amor means "love" in Italian.

How was Caramoor established as a music festival?
Walter and Lucie Rosen, accomplished musicians themselves, shared their love of music with their many guests in the magnificent Mediterranean-style home they built at Caramoor.  Their musical evenings were the seeds of today's Caramoor International Music Festival.  Realizing the pleasure their friends took in the beauty of Caramoor - the house with its art collection, the gardens, and the musical programs on summer evenings - in 1946 the Rosens established a public charity to open Caramoor to the community. Today, Caramoor is one of the foremost venues on the international concert music scene and metropolitan New York's largest annual outdoor summer music festival.

Who selects the programming for Caramoor today?
The programming is designed by internationally-acclaimed conductor and musician Michael Barrett, who has been Caramoor's Chief Executive and General Director since 2003.  The artistic leadership of Caramoor also includes Will Crutchfield, Director of Opera; Jim Luce, Producer of Caramoor's Jazz Festival; and Edward Arron, Artistic Director of the Caramoor Virtuosi.

The renowned Orchestra of St. Luke's has been in-residence since it was formed at Caramoor thirty years ago from the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble.  The Ariel String Quartet is Caramoor's 2008-09 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence.

Where do performances at Caramoor take place?
The Venetian Theater debuted amid thunder and a torrential downpour on the evening of June 21, 1958.  The audience at the inaugural concert remained in their seats, huddled beneath umbrellas as soprano Marian Anderson sang the role of Orfeo, for the first and only time, in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.  The 1714-seat outdoor theater was designed by Frederick Kiesler around a set of Greek and Roman pink marble columns purchased and imported by Caramoor founder Walter Rosen.  The Venetian Theater was built to accommodate the increasing audiences at the fledgling Music Festival and became the third and largest performing space, along with the Spanish Courtyard and the Music Room.
 
In 1986, a new tent was erected which, for the first time, protected all seats from inclement weather. An improved tent and the installation of a wooden floor in 1989 brought noticeably improved acoustics to the already resonant Venetian Theater. 

For over sixty years, the colonnaded Spanish Courtyard has resounded with the voices and music of such artists as Alicia de Larrocha, Frederica von Stade, Beverly Sills, Andrea Marcovicci, Christopher Taylor, Paquito D'Rivera, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and many more.  With a capacity of 614, the Spanish Courtyard provides an intimate concert experience and is the perfect venue for chamber music, early music ensembles, vocal recitals, pre-concert lectures, and candle-lit post-concert receptions.
 
The Spanish Courtyard is at the core of Lucie and Walter Rosen's home, a stucco villa with a red-tiled roof and complicated angles that also features the 220-seat Music Room.  Perhaps the most elegant venue for music in the metropolitan area, Music Room performances take place throughout the year among richly decorative tapestries, stained glass windows, and the Rosens' remarkable collection of European art and furnishings from as early as the 15th-century.

What else does Caramoor encompass?
The Rosen House at Caramoor, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is open to the public as a historic house, one of only five famous mansions in the United States that incorporate entire rooms from European palaces and country manors. Twenty rooms, filled with the Rosens' extraordinary and eclectic collection from B.C.E. to the 20th-century, are open to the public for tours.  Throughout much of the year traditional Afternoon Tea is served from May to October on Thursday and Friday afternoons, and docent-led tours take place Wednesday through Sunday afternoons beginning at 1:00pm (final tours begin at 4:00pm on summer Saturdays, 3:00pm other days).  Each December, the Rosen House's Holiday Tea Musicales are popular events.

The Caramoor estate sprawls over 90 acres and contains several major gardens.  Unlike other gardens in the area, Caramoor's were planned to enhance the site's Renaissance sensibility.  The Sunken Garden is located near the eastern entrance of the Venetian Theater and its unique display pre-dates the Rosens purchase of the estate.  The Woodland and Theater Gardens and Cedar Walk are located on the south and north sides of the Venetian Theater.  These strikingly different gardens, one natural and the other formal, add to the concert experience of everyone who enters the Venetian Theater.  The tall trees of the Cedar Walk, the southern border of the Woodland Garden, create a wonderful deep forest atmosphere.  Located opposite the Rosen House, the Sense Circle was designed around a dovecote (now a fountain) that had been on the property for years.  All the plants may be touched and the fountain may be used as a wishing well, making this a favorite stop for visitors of all ages.  The plan of the garden allows easy access for those in wheelchairs, on crutches, and for the visually impaired.  Framing the Picnic Lawns and adjacent to the Sense Circle, the Tapestry Hedge features an immense collection of evergreens of different hues and textures.  The Iris and Peony Garden is a brilliant assemblage of color in mid- to late-June.  Extending out from the Italian Pavilion is the Butterfly Garden, consisting of the Lion's Head Fountain surrounded by plants chosen to encourage all stages of butterfly development.  The flower colors of pale orange, yellow, and blue match the hues of the antique floor tile of the Pavilion.  Cloistered by 12th-century Byzantine columns and surrounded by the Rosen House, is the Spanish Courtyard with triangular gardens in each corner and, in the center, the base of an old wellhead fountain surrounded by a small, colorful garden.  The Renaissance Gardens transform the entrances to the Diane Moss Education Center, making them even more warm and welcoming.

On November 4, 2001, the new Diane Moss Education Center at Caramoor was officially opened.  This colorful, lively, informal space in one of the estate's original Mediterranean-style buildings has enabled Caramoor to double the number of education program days scheduled each year.  The building has two floors: the downstairs consists of a workshop area, performance space, an art space, and restrooms; upstairs there is an additional 1200 square feet that is used for smaller classroom spaces, rehearsal rooms, and office space.  The facility complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Getting to Caramoor
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road in Katonah, New York, 45 miles from midtown Manhattan.  It is easily accessible by car and by the Harlem Division of the Metro-North Railroad operating out of Grand Central Terminal.  For Bel Canto at Caramoor opera performances (L'elisir d'amore on Saturday, July 18 and Semiramide on Friday, July 31) the Caramoor Caravan runs from Manhattan.

Contact Caramoor
Important telephone numbers and email addresses are:

Box Office:   914.232.1252   boxoffice@caramoor.org
Rosen House & Garden Tours: 914.232.5035 ext. 221  museum@caramoor.org
General Information:  914.232.5035   info@caramoor.org
Group Sales (16 or more):  914.232.5035 ext. 226     matthew@caramoor.org