Music Matters: Rêverie ~ Flute & Harp Duo Brings Two New York Musicians to Stonington
Music Matters: Rêverie ~ Flute & Harp Duo brings flutist Anna Urrey and harpist Kristi Shade to La Grua Center on Saturday, September 19, for an intimate chamber concert built around one of classical music’s most naturally complementary instrumental pairings.
The hourlong 5 p.m. program travels through music by Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Astor Piazzolla and others, putting two instruments capable of remarkable delicacy into a room particularly suited to hearing the details.
But calling Urrey and Shade simply classical musicians undersells what these two do.
Between them are Broadway pits, Carnegie Hall performances, major orchestras, Grammy-winning recordings, movie soundtracks and collaborations with artists ranging from Audra McDonald and Patti LaBelle to John Legend, Florence + The Machine and Andrea Bocelli.
On Saturday, all of that experience gets distilled down to two musicians.
One flute.
One harp.
And an audience sitting only a few feet away.
Rêverie Means Dream
The title gives a good indication of where the program is headed.
The French word rêverie describes a dreamlike state or pleasant daydream, and it is also the title of one of Claude Debussy’s best-known compositions.
Debussy is particularly appropriate for flute and harp.
The French composer became a master of musical color, often treating instruments less as vehicles for big melodies than as different shades of light. Flute and harp appear prominently throughout his work, including his landmark Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and late Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp.
In a flute-and-harp arrangement, the instruments can almost seem to trade properties.
A harp note rings and disappears.
A flute phrase appears above it and hangs in the air.
There is no large ensemble to hide behind.
That’s precisely the point.
Debussy and Fauré Put the Program in France
La Grua has announced works by Debussy and Gabriel Fauré, placing part of Saturday’s program squarely within the French tradition that produced some of the finest repertoire for these instruments.
Fauré’s music combines lyrical melodies with subtle harmonic movement, qualities particularly effective on flute.
Debussy takes color even further.
The duo’s repertoire elsewhere offers an intriguing indication of how deep that connection goes. For a forthcoming Newport Classical appearance, Urrey and Shade have programmed Debussy’s Rêverie, Arabesque No. 1 and Clair de lune alongside Fauré’s Fantaisie, Op. 79.
La Grua has not published a complete piece-by-piece program for Saturday, so those individual works shouldn’t be assumed.
What has been confirmed is the broader musical territory: Debussy, Fauré, Piazzolla and more.
And Piazzolla changes the temperature considerably.
Then Astor Piazzolla Takes the Music to Buenos Aires
Astor Piazzolla reinvented Argentine tango during the 20th century.
His nuevo tango absorbed elements of classical composition and jazz without abandoning tango’s rhythmic and emotional foundation.
That makes Piazzolla a fascinating contrast to Debussy.
The instruments don’t change.
Their personalities do.
Urrey and Shade have Histoire du Tango in their shared repertoire, a work originally written for flute and guitar that traces tango’s evolution from its rougher beginnings through the concert hall.
Again, La Grua has announced Piazzolla but hasn’t specified the individual composition, so Saturday’s exact selection remains to be heard.
But the inclusion of his music tells us this won’t be an hour of uniformly hushed, impressionistic chamber music.
There’s rhythm in this pairing too.
Anna Urrey Has Played From Carnegie Hall to Movie Soundtracks
Flutist Anna Urrey works across orchestral, chamber, contemporary, film and educational music.
Her performance résumé includes Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Le Poisson Rouge and National Sawdust, along with appearances with the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Knights, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Company and NOVUS NY.
She also spent three summers as principal flute at the Castleton Festival under conductor Lorin Maazel.
Then there’s the recording studio.
Urrey can be heard on the soundtracks for Radium Girls, Little Women and Goodnight Mommy.
She also served as principal flute on the Experiential Orchestra’s recording of Ethel Smyth’s The Prison.
That album won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
She’s Also Shared Stages With Some Very Familiar Names
Urrey’s career doesn’t stop at the traditional classical boundary.
She has performed alongside artists including Audra McDonald, Patti LaBelle, Rufus Wainwright, Jennifer Holliday, Brian McKnight, The Irish Tenors, Jane Birkin and Ólafur Arnalds.
Her professional work has also included the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.
Beyond performing, Urrey is deeply involved in music education.
She is a New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist, a Wm. S. Haynes Collaborative Ambassador and a faculty member at the Marymount School in New York.
She earned her master’s degree and Performance Certificate from the Manhattan School of Music after completing her bachelor’s degree at Rutgers University.
Chamber music remains central to her work.
Urrey is Co-Artistic Director of the Exponential Ensemble, where performance and educational programming intersect.
Saturday strips all of that experience down to its most exposed form.
One player carrying an entire melodic line.
Kristi Shade Started Playing Harp at Two
Harpist Kristi Shade got an unusually early start.
She began playing the instrument at 2 years old through the Suzuki harp program.
That eventually led to a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and a master’s degree from Manhattan School of Music.
Today she is Principal Harpist of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, with which she has recorded multiple albums for the Naxos label.
She is also a chamber musician with Hat Trick, a flute-viola-harp trio, and Duo Scorpio, the harp duo she formed with Kathryn Andrews.
Duo Scorpio has been particularly important to Shade’s work in contemporary music, commissioning and performing new repertoire for two harps rather than relying exclusively on the instrument’s traditional literature.
If You’ve Seen a Broadway Musical, You May Have Already Heard Her
Shade’s Broadway résumé is enormous.
Her credits include performances in productions of Wicked, Ragtime, Gypsy, The Notebook, Sweeney Todd, Camelot, Paradise Square, Carousel, Hello, Dolly!, Doctor Zhivago, Cinderella, A Little Night Music and The Apple Tree.
Those productions put her in orchestras beneath performers including Audra McDonald, Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angela Lansbury, Elaine Stritch and Kristin Chenoweth.
She can also be heard on official cast recordings for Anastasia and Goosebumps the Musical.
And her 2026 calendar illustrates how fluidly she moves between musical worlds.
This summer alone, Shade’s schedule included performances of Wicked and Ragtime in New York, the PAAX Festival in Mexico, the National Flute Association Convention in Oregon and appearances with the Chamber Orchestra of New York.
Then comes Stonington.
From John Legend to The Killers
Shade’s work outside Broadway expands the picture further.
She has performed with Andrea Bocelli, John Legend, Florence + The Machine, The Killers, Santana, Patti LaBelle, Barry Manilow, Rufus Wainwright, Lauren Daigle, Pink Martini and Itzhak Perlman, among others.
Her television appearances include The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Today, The Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
That’s a remarkable range for an instrument people sometimes associate almost exclusively with orchestras, weddings and angels on greeting cards.
The modern concert harp can be rhythmic, percussive, atmospheric and surprisingly powerful.
Hearing one from a few rows away tends to make that clear very quickly.
The Two Musicians Will Meet Again in Newport
Saturday isn’t a one-off pairing.
Urrey and Shade are also scheduled to appear together during Newport Classical’s 2026-27 Chamber Series in February.
That program gives an unusually useful glimpse at the repertoire the musicians have developed together.
Their announced Newport program stretches from Nino Rota and Lili Boulanger to Jules Mouquet, Fauré, Debussy and Piazzolla.
It moves across different eras and national traditions while exploiting the colors available from flute and harp.
La Grua’s Rêverie appears to draw from the same musical partnership, compressed into a one-hour Stonington performance.
Music Matters Was Built for Concerts Like This
The concert is part of La Grua Center’s long-running Music Matters series.
Music Matters emphasizes chamber, classical, early and world music in a setting far removed from a traditional concert hall.
La Grua occupies a renovated former industrial building at 32 Water Street in Stonington Borough.
The Great Room retains heavy timber, stone and the proportions of the old structure while functioning as an intimate performance space.
There is no distant balcony hundreds of feet from the stage.
There is no giant orchestra separating the audience from the individual performers.
For a flute-and-harp recital, that intimacy matters.
You’ll hear the breath entering the flute.
You’ll see Shade’s hands moving across the strings.
And you’ll hear the physical attack of the harp before the note begins to resonate.
That’s chamber music at the scale it was meant to occupy.
An Hour Is Enough to Travel Quite a Distance
The concert begins at 5 p.m.
Doors open at 4:30 p.m.
Seating is unreserved, so arrival time determines where you sit.
Tickets are $25 and sold primarily online. La Grua says a limited number may be available at the door on the day of the performance, but availability isn’t guaranteed.
Then the room gets quiet.
Debussy and Fauré provide one kind of atmosphere.
Piazzolla provides another.
And two musicians accustomed to Broadway theaters, symphony orchestras and major concert halls get an hour to see what they can do with a room in Stonington Borough.
Details
Event: Music Matters: Rêverie ~ Flute & Harp Duo
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
Time: 5–6 p.m.
Doors: 4:30 p.m.
Venue: La Grua Center
Address: 32 Water Street, Stonington, CT 06378
Performers: Anna Urrey, flute; Kristi Shade, harp
Program: Works by Debussy, Fauré, Piazzolla and others
Tickets: $25
Ticketing: Advance tickets are available online; a limited number may be available at the door
Seating: Unreserved
Parking: Free parking is available in the Stonington Commons North Lot
Phone: 860-535-2300
More information is available at the Event Website link below.
To purchase tickets, click the Event Ticketing link below.
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