Cellist Lourdes "Lolo" de la Peña has been blessed with amazing performance opportunities playing for celebrities, ambassadors, and on world-class stages. Most notably, in 2021 she was one of three cellists asked to play at the Kennedy Center for John Williams' 90th Birthday Party Dinner attended by Stephen Spielberg and David Rubenstein, Chairman of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) Board. In 2018, she played for the Aspen Institute's Project Play Summit's Private Dinner featuring Kobe Bryant. She has given concerts at the Embassies of Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil, played for private events for former Congresswoman Connie Morella, and at the US Senate to help promote the arts. 

Her more recent performances range from playing at Carnegie Hall to a Handel's Messiah Concert in Pennsylvania where she played alongside David Chan, the Concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera and Violin Professor at Juilliard. In high school, Lourdes was an NSO Youth Fellow at the Kennedy Center where she performed several times in the NSO's Concert Hall and on the Millennium Stage. 

She is now the Founder and Director of StringTime (stringtimemusic.org) where she is fulfilling her dream of running a beginner strings camp that will inspire kids to learn to make beautiful music. She studied cello with NSO Principal Cellist David Hardy. Now, she continues to teach privately both cello and piano while also learning to play the Viola da Gamba with John Moran, the Historical Performance Chair at Peabody Conservatory. You can learn more about her on her website: lololovescello.com

Alec Davis is a pianist, composer, conductor, vocalist, sacred musician, and pedagogue. He teaches private piano in the Baltimore and DC regions, with a focus on physiologically healthy technique. He is the director of music and organist at Westmoreland Congregational UCC in Bethesda, at which he directs the Westmoreland Festival Chorus; a community chorus which prepares programs that engage community and raise funds for local charitable organizations.

Alec also runs the Green Stairwell Concert Series, which had its first season in 2019. GSCS presents immersive and experimental collaborations between local musicians, artists, and designers to accessibly curate cutting-edge Art for the DC area.

Le paon

Il va sûrement se marier aujourd'hui.
Ce devait être pour hier. En habit de
gala, il était prêt. Il n'attendait que sa fiancée.
Elle n'est pas venue. Elle ne peut tarder.
Glorieux, il se promène avec une allure
de prince indien et porte sur lui les riches
présents d'usages. L'amour avive l'éclat de
ses couleurs et son aigrette tremble comme
une lyre.
La fiancée n'arrive pas.
Il monte au haut du toit et regarde du côté
du soleil. Il jette son cri diabolique:
Léon! Léon!
C'est ainsi qu'il appelle sa fiancée. Il ne
voit rien venir et personne ne répond. Les
volailles habituées ne lèvent même point la
tête. Elles sont lasses de l'admirer. Il
redescend dans la cour, si sûr d'être beau
qu'il est incapable de rancune.
Son mariage sera pour demain.
Et, ne sachant que faire du reste de la
journée, il se dirige vers le perron. Il gravit
les marches, comme des marches de temple,
d'un pas officiel.
Il relève sa robe à queue toute lourde des
yeux qui n'ont pu se détacher d'elle.
Il répète encore une fois la cérémonie.

Le grillon

C'est l'heure où, las d'errer, l'insecte
nègre revient de promenade et répare avec
soin le désordre de son domaine.
D'abord il ratisse ses étroites allées de
sable. paths.
Il fait du bran de scie qu'il écarte au
seuil de sa retraite.
Il lime la racine de cette grande herbe
propre à le harceller.
Il se repose.
Puis il remonte sa minuscule montre.
A-t-il fini? Est-elle cassée?
Il se repose encore un peu.
Il rentre chez lui et ferme sa porte.
Longtemps il tourne sa clef dans la
serrure délicate.
Et il écoute:
Point d'alarme dehors.
Mais il ne se trouve pas en sûreté.
Et comme par une chaînette dont la poulie
grince, il descend jusqu'au fond de la terre.
On n'entend plus rien.
Dans la campagne muette, les peupliers
se dressent comme des doigts en l'air
et désignent la lune.

Le cygne

Il glisse sur le bassin, comme un traîneau
blanc, de nuage en nuage. Car il n'a faim que
des nuages floconneux qu'il voit naître,
bouger, et se perdre dans l'eau. C'est l'un
d'eux qu'il désire. Il le vise du bec, et il
plonge tout à coup son col vêtu de neige.
Puis, tel un bras de femme sort d'une
manche, il le retire.
Il n'a rien.
Il regarde: les nuages effarouchés ont
disparu.
Il ne reste qu'un instant désabusé, car
les nuages tardent peu à revenir, et, là-bas,
où meurent les ondulations de l'eau, en voici
un qui se reforme.
Doucement, sur son léger coussin de
plumes, le cygne rame et s'approche...
Il s'épuise à pêcher de vains reflets, et
peut-être qu'il mourra, victime de cette
illusion, avant d'attraper un seul morceau
de nuage.
Mais qu'est-ce que je dis?
Chaque fois qu'il plonge, il fouille
du bec la vase nourissante et ramène un ver.
Il engraisse comme une oie.

Le martin-pêcheur

Ça n'a pas mordu, ce soir, mais je
rapporte une rare émotion.
Comme je tenais ma perche de ligne
tendue, un martin-pêcheur est venu s'y poser.
Nous n'avons pas d'oiseau plus éclatant.
Il semblait une grosse fleur bleue au
bout d'une longue tige. La perche pliait sous
le poids. Je ne respirais plus, tout fier d'être
pris pour un arbre par un martin-pêcheur.
Et je suis sûr qu'il ne s'est pas envolé
de peur, mais qu'il a cru qu'il ne faisait que
passer d'une branche à une autre.

La pintade

C'est la bossue de ma cour. Elle ne rêve
que plaies à cause de sa bosse.
Les poules ne lui disent rien:
brusquement, elle se précipite et les harcèle.
Puis elle baisse la tête, penche le corps,
et, de toute la vitesse de ses pattes maigres,
elle court frapper, de son bec dur, juste au
centre de la roue d'une dinde.
Cette poseuse l'agaçait.
Ainsi, la tête bleuie, ses barbillons à vif,
cocardière, elle rage, du matin au soir. Elle se
bat sans motif, peut-être parce qu'elle
s'imagine toujours qu'on se moque de sa
taille, de son crâne chauve et de sa queue
basse. tail.
Et elle ne cesse de jetter un cri discordant
qui perce l'air comme une pointe.
Parfois elle quitte la cour et disparaît.
Elle laisse aux volailles pacifiques un moment
de répit. Mais elle revient plus turbulente et
plus criarde. Et, frénétique, elle se vautre
par terre.
Qu'a-t-elle donc?
La sournoise fait une farce.
Elle est allée pondre son œuf à la
campagne.
Je peux le chercher si ça m'amuse.
Elle se roule dans la poussière, comme
une bossue.

The peacock

He must surely be getting married today.
It was to have been for yesterday. Dressed in his
gala clothes, he was ready. He was only waiting for
his bride. She did not come. She cannot tarry.
Magnificent, he parades at the pace
of an Indian prince, wearing the customary
rich gifts. Love heightens the splendour of
his colours and his crest trembles like
a lyre.
The bride does not come.
He climbs to the top of the roof and looks in the
direction of the sun. He utters his dreadful cry:
Léon! Léon!
This is how he calls his bride. He
sees nothing coming and no one replies.
Accustomed to this, the fowl do not even raise their
heads. They are tired of admiring him. He
climbs back down into the yard, so convinced
of being handsomehat he is incapable of resentment.
His wedding will be tomorrow.
And, not knowing what to do with the rest of the
day, he heads for the porch. He ascend
the steps, like steps of a temple,
with an official stride.
He lifts his tail-coat, heavy with the
eyes which were unable to detach themselves.
He rehearses the ceremony once more.

The cricket

This is the time when, tired of wandering, the
black insect returns from his walk and carefully
repairs the disorder about his domain.
First he rakes his narrow, sandy

He makes some sawdust which he spreads on the
threshold of his retreat.
He files at the root of this tall grass
which is likely to annoy him.
He rests.
Then he rewinds his tiny watch.
Has he finished? Is it broken?
He rests again for a while longer.
He enters his home and shuts the door.
He spends a long time turning his key in the
delicate lock.
And he listens:
Nothing to fear outside.
But he does not feel at ease.
And as though by a little chain whose pulley
creaks, he climbs down into the depths of the earth.
Nothing more can be heard.
In the silent countryside, the poplars
stretch up like fingers in the air
and point to the moon.

The swan

He glides over the lake, like a white
sleigh, from cloud to cloud. For he is only
hungry for the fleecy clouds that he sees born,
move, and disappear in the water. It is for one
of those that he longs. He takes aim with his beak,
and suddenly plunges his snowy neck into the water.
Then, like a woman's arm withdrawing from a
sleeve, he draws it out again.
He has nothing.
He looks: the startled clouds have .
vanished.
Only for a moment is he disenchanted, for
the clouds don't tarry on their return, and over
there, where the ripples on the water are dying,
here is another re-forming.
Gently, on his light cushion of
feathers, the swan paddles and draws near...
He is exhausting himself by fishing for empty
reflections and perhaps he will die, a victim of this
illusion, before catching a single morsel
of cloud.
But what am I saying?
Each time that he dives, he searches the
nourishing mud with his beak and brings out a worm.
He is fattening like a goose

The kingfisher

Not one bite this evening, but I
bring back a rare experience.
As I was holding my rod out-stretched,
a kingfisher came and perched on it.
We have no more dazzling bird.
He seemed like a big blue flower at
the end of a long stalk. The rod sagged beneath
the weight. I held my breath, so proud of being
taken for a tree by a kingfisher.
And I am sure that he did not fly away
through fear but that he thought that he was just
going from one branch to another.

The guinea-hen

She's the hunchback of my yard. She dreams
of nothing but trouble because of her hump.
The hens say nothing to her:
suddenly she dives in and harasses them.
Then she lowers her head, leans her body,
and as fast as her skinny legs will carry her,
she runs and strikes, with her hard beak,
the very centre of a turkey's tail-wheel.
This show-off irritated her.
In this way, blue in the face, her beard flapping,
bumptious, she rages from dawn till dusk. She
fights without reason, perhaps because she
still imagines that she is mocked for her
size, her bald head and for her low

And she never stops uttering her rasping cry,
which pierces the air like a needle.
Sometimes she leaves the yard and disappears.
She gives the peaceful fowl a moment
of respite. But she returns even more turbulent and
more noisy. And, in a frenzy, she sprawls on the
ground.
Whatever can be the matter with her?
The sly creature is teasing.
She has gone to lay her egg in the
country.
I can look for it should I so wish.
She rolls in the dust, like
a hunchback.

© translated by Christopher Goldsack