Photo Courtesy of Maina Handmaker
Silk painting showing extraction of horseshoe crab's
blue blood by Susan Quateman .
Arpeggione Ensemble at Stillington Hall, Gloucester. MA
Photo courtesy of Leslie Bartlett.
Upcoming Events
Susan and Andrea LeBlanc, co-Director of the Arpeggione Ensemble, are 2025-2026 Great Marsh Artist Fellows,
developing a new multimedia performance project, “Music and Silk: an Ancient Animal and a Shorebird’s Survival”.
Our project brings together chamber music and silk artworks to tell the intertwined stories of two extraordinary species: the horseshoe crab and the red knot.
These species, both in decline due to human actions, are connected through the Great Marsh,
one of the most fragile coastal ecosystems on the East Coast.
The performance will unfold as a 30-minute concert experience featuring historical instruments,
silk paintings projected on a screen, and narration, designed to immerse audiences
in a tale of ecological interdependence.
It will also include a slide show/video of the science of the intertwined relationship between the horseshoe crab and red knot.
Through this project, we aim to highlight the urgent environmental threats facing these species,
including habitat loss, climate change, overharvesting for pharmaceutical uses, and bait harvesting.
The score, arranged by Thomas Carroll for Arpeggione Ensemble, traverses musical eras
to mirror the vast evolutionary timeline of the horseshoe crab and the rapid, vulnerable migratory patterns of the red knot.
Silk paintings by Susan Quateman evoke the beauty, fragility, and complexity of the marsh and coastal ecosystems.
This interdisciplinary work builds on the success of past collaborations between Arpeggione Ensemble and environmental artist Susan Quateman,
including the acclaimed operetta “Shoebert’s Unfinished Journey”.
Music and Silk premieres in 2026 with support from Essex County Greenbelt Association, Artists for the Great Marsh, NOAA, Ipswich Cultural Council, and individual supporters.
The performance Of ‘Music and Silk: an Ancient Animal and a Shorebird’s Survival’
premiered at The Trustees’ Castle Hill, Ipswich, MA. June 6, 2026
Silk painting of invasive green crabs. Alternative bait to horseshoe crabs
for eel and whelk trapping.
Robert Buchsbaum, Conservation Scientist, Mass Audubon (retired), and
Anne Giblin, Acting Director Ecosystem Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, at St. Botolph Club Exibit, October 2025.
Upcoming Dates
Saturday, August 15, 2026
Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Visitor Auditorium, Newburyport, MA.
1:30 pm Performance (all ages)
2:30 pm Art workshop for children
FREE Admission
Sunday, August 30, 2026
Cox Reservation, Essex County Greenbelt Association, Essex, MA.
4:00 pm Performance (all ages)
FREE Admission
News from 2025
Solo exhibition, ‘Silk Explorations of the Great Marsh’ at the St Botolph Club, Boston,
MA. September 10 – October 17, 2025
Showcased environmental silk work on the Great Marsh since 2016.
Included silk artworks on horseshoe crabs and red knots made while a Great Marsh
Artist Fellow grantee in 2024 – 2025, through the Kathleen Van Demark Fund for the
Great Marsh, administered by the Manship Artists Residency.
Roundtable talk at St Botolph Club on ‘Music and Silk’, October 9, 2025. Presented in
collaboration with Arpeggione Ensemble musicians Thomas Carroll (clarinet) and April
Sun (piano).
Presentation on ‘Music and Silk’ in collaboration with Andrea LeBlanc (flute) at
Lanesville Community Center, October 12 2025. For arts-based discussion ‘Rough
Seas Ahead’.
Musicale and Presentation to support ‘Music and Silk’ at Stillington Hall, Gloucester MA.
November 22, 2025. Included talk on the project, concert by Arpeggione Ensemble and
reading by author Deborah Cramer.