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| THE CAMPUS
Nestled in a lush valley between Mt. Assurance and Mascoma Lake, the community known as Chosen Vale, founded in 1793, was the ninth of eighteen Shaker communities established in the United States. Here, community members practiced equality of the sexes and races, celibacy, pacifism, and communal ownership of property. Striving to create a "heaven on earth", the Enfield Shakers built more than 200 buildings (including the Great Stone Dwelling, the largest Shaker dwelling ever built), farmed over 3,000 acres of fertile land, educated children in model schools, and followed the "Shaker Way". Chosen Vale is now home to the Enfield Shaker Museum, a nonprofit, membership organization dedicated to interpreting and preserving the complex history of the Enfield, New Hampshire Shaker village, as well as the newly created Center for Advanced Music Studies which opened in September, 2005.
The Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale offers dining and accommodations in the spectacular 1841 Great Stone Dwelling at the Enfield Shaker Village. This magnificent building incorporated every luxury and convenience available in 1841 and embodied the Shaker's commitment to the pursuit of perfection, harmony and productivity. The first floor was primarily dedicated to preparing and eating the communities meals. The second floor housed the Meeting Room as well as 4 dwelling rooms. The third and fourth floors contained 8 dwelling rooms per floor, each room measuring approximately 20' x 20'. The fifth and sixth floors were used as work spaces and storage. Many rooms today still boast a stunning array of built in drawers and cupboards, closets, pegrail, and Shaker furniture. In short, the Great Stone Dwelling contains all the innovations the Shakers could conceive of to make their temporal home the reflection of the spiritual perfection they pursued in their communal lives in Enfield.
It's important to recognize that the goals, disciplines, and methods employed by artist musicians and the goals, disciplines, and methods of the Shaker community are and were vastly different. Creative musicians must be prepared to "color outside the lines" of their art to create personal and meaningful statements, while the motto of the Shaker community was "everything in its place". However the goal of each is congruent -- to achieve the sublime through focus on a self defined goal and achievement of that goal through hard, determined work. Faculty members and participants at the Center for Advanced Musical Studies walk the same halls, and dine, meet, and sleep in the same rooms the Shakers used 150 years ago. It is truly a unique experience to be able to live and work in this piece of New Hampshire and American history.
Additionally, participants and faculty will work and perform in two other unique buildings on the site: the Stone Mill (1849, now used for masterclasses and teaching) and the Mary Keane Chapel (1931), which is connected to the Great Stone dwelling by a stone walkway.
The Mary Keane Chapel was built to designs by Donat R. Baribault of Springfield, Massachusetts by the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette seven years after the last Enfield Shakers moved to Canterbury, New Hampshire. The stunning sanctuary features a brilliant Casavant pipe organ and spectacular German stained glass windows produced by the Zettler Studios. This unique historic structure speaks eloquently of the second phase of the site's two hundred year inhabitation by religious organizations. Detailed work depicting the fifteen mysteries of the rosary adorn both sides of the beautiful bronze front doors. The floor of the sanctuary is fashioned of Italian marble, as are the enormous, mosaic covered alters and towering columns. The Mary Keane Chapel is renowned for its European style acoustic.
Casavant
Frères, Ltèe Three
manuals, 26 ranks
Each
of more than a dozen important stained glass windows (Zettler
Studios, Germany) found in the Mary Keane Chapel is in some
way related to the LaSalette event.
The
Center for Advanced Musical Studies
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