Please note that due to Due to the expected high temperatures this week, all performances will now take place under the courtyard tent near the Merriweather Cafe.

View a digital program for these performances.

Join the New York Baroque Dance Company and Music of the Regiment for this performance of Francis Johnson's New Cotillions In Honour of Our Illustrious Guest General Lafayette at Hillwood! This performance pays homage to Marquis de Lafayette's 1824-1825 tour of America as the "Guest of the Nation", while telling the exciting life story of composer Francis Johnson.

The evening will feature a historically informed performance of music and dance that would have been performed at Marquis de Lafayette's Grand Ball in Philadelphia 1824. At the center of this Grand Ball was the music of Francis Johnson — today, a much overlooked composer, but in his day, one of the most internationally successful American artists. He was the first American-born musician to tour Europe with his band, the first African American to publish large quantities of sheet music commercially (over 200 pieces), and he performed extensively for both white and black audiences in his hometown Philadelphia. Johnson's dances were able to be brought back to life by Alan Jones and Julia Bengtsson for The New York Baroque Dance Company, thanks to a research grant from Centre National de la Danse in Paris. Experience the dance and rediscover Johnson's captivating music, performed live by musicians from Music of the Regiment, in consultation with Opera Lafayette. Enjoy this magical evening of dance in Hillwood’s gardens! 

Images are courtesy of the NYBDC. 

PROGRAM TIMELINE

5:30-7:00 p.m. | Explore Hillwood  

• Enjoy Hillwood’s mansion, gardens, and greenhouse.
• Find the perfect memento from your visit at the museum shop  
• Grab something to eat from Merriweather To Go 

7:00-8:00 p.m. | Performance under the courtyard tent near the Merriweather Cafe

PROGRAM GUIDELINES 

• This program takes place outdoors under the courtyard tent near the Merriweather Cafe. Please prepare for warm weather. You are welcome to bring water. There is a refill station in the Visitor Center.
• Program seating is no longer picnic-style. Seating and table seating will be provided under the tent.
• If all seats and tables are filled, there is standing room at the back of the tent.
• Food and drinks, including beer and wine, will be available for purchase at Merriweather To Go until 7 p.m.  
• Hillwood’s liquor license does not allow patrons to bring in outside alcohol.
• See our visitor guidelines for more important information.  

CHECK IN AND INCLEMENT WEATHER 

Please check-in at the visitor center upon your arrival to the estate. This program will take place rain or shine. Due to the expected high temperature, the program will now take place under the courtyard tent near the Merriweather Cafe. Please note that if it does rain during the program, guests seated near the edge of the tent may get wet. Please dress accordingly.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

The New York Baroque Dance Company, founded in 1976 by Catherine Turocy, Artistic Director, and Ann Jacoby, is still leading the historical dance field today. The company specializes in producing 17th and 18th century programs ranging from street performances to fully staged operas.  There are over 100 operas in its repertoire as well as reconstructed dances and ballets choreographed in period style.  Through residencies at educational institutions serving grades K-12 and at the university level, the NYBDC instructs professionals and the general public.  The NYBDC has toured North America, Europe and Japan with conductors James Richman, John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan and Wolfgang Katschner.  In their home base of New York City, the company produces concerts annually with Concert Royal directed by James Richman.  The NYBDC also performs with Opera Lafayette Orchestra and Chorus, The Dallas Bach Society, Mercury Baroque, Apollo’s Fire and Philharmonia Baroque.

Groundbreaking productions over the past three decades include the premiere of Jean Philippe Rameau’s Les Boreades (not performed in the 18th century because of Rameau’s death) and Hippolyte et Aricie, both at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Opera de Lyon; Henry Purcell’s Indian Queen performed at the Barbican in London; the award winning Scylla et Glaucus by Jean Marie Leclair performed at the Opera de Lyon as well as over 100 performances of a double bill with Rameau’s Pygmalion and George Frederick Handel’s Terpsicore. The company is very proud to have performed in Handel’s operas Terpsicore, Ariodante, Arianna, Alcina, Atalanta, Orlando, and Teseo at the International Handel Festival in Goettingen, Germany. 

Founded in 2023 by Dominic Giardino and Chris Troiano, Music of the Regiment (MotR) is an ensemble of musicians and network of researchers dedicated to the study and performance of 18th and 19th century European and American military music. MotR offers scholarly and musical programming that contextualizes the role of military music and musicians from the Age of Enlightenment through the American Civil War. 

Music of the Regiment was brought to this program in consultation with Opera Lafayette. Founded in 1995 as The Violins of Lafayette, Opera Lafayette was part of a period instrument renaissance, a movement that provided a primary avenue for performing musicians searching for new ways to explore music of the past. Opera Lafayette's debut season took place in the Salon Doré in Washington DC’s Corcoran Gallery of Art and featured chamber music concerts by France’s greatest 18th-century composers. In 2001, the company reincorporated as Opera Lafayette, reflecting our increasing concentration on opera and presenting richly nuanced realizations of lost repertoire in ways that are relevant to today’s audiences. In 2012 and again in 2014, Opera Lafayette achieved international fame when, at the invitation of Chateau de Versailles Spectacles, we were invited to perform at Opera Royal in Versailles, France, closing with five sold-out performances. 

ABOUT DANCE AT HILLWOOD

Since 2021, Hillwood has explored and expanded its programming in the world of dance. Marjorie Post was a lover of dance, both in her personal life and as a patron of the performing arts. This connection between Post, Hillwood, and dance inspires programs that give a platform to movement artists from the Washington, D.C. area. In past years of Dance on the Lunar Lawn programming, Hillwood has co-commissioned a piece with Dance Place, hosted performances by SOLE Defined, Gesel Mason, Coyaba, the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company, and has cultivated a multi-year partnership with the Dance Institute of Washington, featuring pre-professional dancers. This summer’s performance by the New York Baroque Dance Company marks the fifth summer of dance programming in Hillwood’s gardens.