Kids tug at your sleeve, your boss asks for more than you can give, the stock market rattles your retirement dreams, the overflowing laundry basket begs for attention, and your leaking sink, well, the plumber can’t come till Tuesday. Pause for a moment.
Now imagine this: You’re sitting in a sun-dappled garden, where birdsongs drift through the trees and blossoms sway in the breeze. Light filters gently through the leaves. Only a soft voice pierces the calm air, guiding you to stillness. As your breath slows, the weight of the week begins to lift. And then, rich, resonant, and live music fills the air, meeting you exactly where you are.
This near-magical experience is real — and it’s happening just 22 miles north of Rye, in the Sunken Garden at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.
Caramoor’s Music & Meditation series returns this July for three Saturday mornings, blending guided meditation with live performance. It’s part of Caramoor’s 80th anniversary season, and this particular series offers something different: an invitation to slow down, breathe deeply, and simply receive.
Each Music & Meditation event begins with a guided meditation, lasting about 10 minutes (though your guide will gently tailor the timing to the energy of the group), followed by a concert by exciting emerging artists. The meditation is led by Jennifer Llewellyn, founder and Chief Wellness Officer of Majestic Hudson — a healing sanctuary in Katonah known for its blend of spiritual mindfulness and creative exploration. With her grounding presence and gently lyrical voice, Llewellyn helps audiences release distractions and come into the present.
“I basically prep everybody for the music by putting them in a very deep mindful state,” Llewellyn explains. “We focus on techniques like breath awareness, noticing the sounds of nature — the rustling leaves, the birds — and tuning into the heart’s center, so that by the time the music begins, the audience is completely relaxed and open to the experience.”
A trained sound healer, Llewellyn often incorporates a singing bowl — a type of resonant bell that produces deep, harmonic tones, said to ground the body and calm the nervous system. Sometimes, she even layers in poetry to help attune the audience to stillness and make them receptive to the beauty of the moment.
“Slowing down and being mindful, being in that place of receiving, makes you enjoy the music all the more,” she says.
Each concert is a journey in sound, chosen to harmonize with the deep listening state you have just entered. On July 5, Tallā Rouge, a Persian-Cajun viola duo featuring Aria Cheregosha and Lauren Spaulding, offers music that Gramophone praised for crossing “the porous borders that lie between classical, contemporary, folk, pop, and non-Western musics.” On July 12, flutist Alex Sopp — of yMusic, the NOW Ensemble, and The Knights — joins JACK Quartet violinist Austin Wulliman for a “musical dialogue.” The final morning, July 19, features a duo performance by cellist Gabriel Cabezas (also in yMusic), called by The Chicago Tribune “nothing short of brilliant,” and guitarist Jordan Dodson, “one of the top young guitarists of his generation,” according to Performance Today.
The performances last about 45 minutes and are played without speaking or applause between works, to keep from disrupting the experience. Following the final work, the musicians speak about the music and why it was chosen.
According to Kathy Schuman, Caramoor’s Artistic Director, “This series offers a soul-nourishing way of hearing music and builds community through the shared experience of silence and sound. We hope people from across Westchester will discover this opportunity to meditate and listen more deeply.”
The series was first conceived in 2021 as a way to bring people together through nature, mindfulness, and music during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The venue itself — with its Sunken Garden, now filled with butterfly-attracting blooms — is a symbol of renewal.
So bring a chair. Bring a friend. Leave your to-do list at home. Events start at 11am. Tickets are $29 and are available at Caramoor.org or by calling the box office at 914.232.1252.
Rye Record arts writer Laura Schiller is also publications editor and chief copywriter at Caramoor.
