Pear Tree and Partridge
Laura Hairgrove Randall and Mary Vanhoozer are Renaissance women who love to make music, engage in rich conversation, and share the gift of beauty in the everyday through a variety of creative outlets. Their shared passion have led them to Pear Tree and Partridge:
More than simply a music duo, their musical and creative collaboration also represent a way of living.
Pear Tree and Partridge is committed to crafting live music with skill, dedication, and creativity with the aim to create excellent music for the joy, enrichment, and good of their local communities. In addition to concerts, Pear Tree and Partridge also shares blogs, poetry, recipes, and pictures on their website, creating a virtual space for artistic reflection and personal rejuvenation.
Pear Tree and Partridge
Laura Hairgrove Randall and Mary Vanhoozer are Renaissance women who love to make music, engage in rich conversation, and share the gift of beauty in the everyday through a variety of creative outlets. Their shared passion have led them to Pear Tree and Partridge:
More than simply a music duo, their musical and creative collaboration also represent a way of living.
Pear Tree and Partridge is committed to crafting live music with skill, dedication, and creativity with the aim to create excellent music for the joy, enrichment, and good of their local communities. In addition to concerts, Pear Tree and Partridge also shares blogs, poetry, recipes, and pictures on their website, creating a virtual space for artistic reflection and personal rejuvenation.
Pear Tree and Partridge
Laura Hairgrove Randall and Mary Vanhoozer are Renaissance women who love to make music, engage in rich conversation, and share the gift of beauty in the everyday through a variety of creative outlets. Their shared passion have led them to Pear Tree and Partridge:
More than simply a music duo, their musical and creative collaboration also represent a way of living.
Pear Tree and Partridge is committed to crafting live music with skill, dedication, and creativity with the aim to create excellent music for the joy, enrichment, and good of their local communities. In addition to concerts, Pear Tree and Partridge also shares blogs, poetry, recipes, and pictures on their website, creating a virtual space for artistic reflection and personal rejuvenation.
Multi-instrumentalist and melodist
Angelus ad Virginem*
Mary Vanhoozer
~ Fusing artistry with passion for the purpose of restoring beauty one note at a time ~
As a professional pianist, Mary has performed solo recitals and chamber music concerts throughout the United States, as well as Scotland and Switzerland. She has taught masterclasses at various schools and institutions from coast to coast. At age 15, she won the Lake Forest Concerto Competition and appeared as soloist with the Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra. She later played with the Wheaton College Symphony Orchestra as a finalist in the Wheaton Conservatory Concerto Competition.
Mary's solo piano recording, From Leipzig to LA, features the complete keyboard partitas of J. S. Back, as well as a commissioned work by composer Josh Rodriguez, entitled Partita Picosa. The album was selected as a finalist in the American Prize Competition in 2022.
A dedicated pedagogue, Mary helps her students gain a deeper love and understanding of music, develop a vision to share live music with local community, and cultivate an appreciation for the craft of performance.
Mary is an Associate Fellow of the Kirby Laing Center for Public Theology in Cambridge, England.
A member of the Ciaramella Ensemble, Mary exudes a deep and abiding passion for early music: during her graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music she attended classes taught by the renown lutenist and scholar Paul O'Dette, and received voice lessons from Ellen Hargis at Case Western Reserve University.
In November 2021, Mary made her Los Angeles debut on hurdy gurdy joining the critically acclaimed Ciaramella Ensemble for a concert of renaissance dances. She has performed as a special guest (hurdy gurdy) for a program of French noëls with the USC Thornton Baroque Sinfonia, and appeared on baroque violin, hurdy gurdy, and voice with the University of California Los Angeles' Early Music Ensemble.
Mary can be heard playing hurdy gurdy on a number of albums, including Simon's Beard and Under the Birchwood Tree, which feature music from John Hilton's Catch That Catch Can and John Playford's Dancing Master. Her creative arrangements weave the tunes into conversation with one another, and offer a compelling case for including the hurdy gurdy as a wlecome and more established member of 17th century English dance and song repertoire.
Mary is also an avid melodist: she released Songs of Day and Night, her first album of original music in 2015. The music reflects both her love of folk music as well as early music sensibilities, demonstrated in dance rhythms, transparent textures, and modal melodies. Her goal for her original music is to 'awaken the child in each of us, creating a sense of wonder to help listeners recognise and celebrate the beauty and small miracles of every day life.'
In 2020, Mary formed Bard and Ceilidh, a one-woman, multi-instrumental studio recording ensemble. In addition to Songs of Day and Night, she has released three more albums of original melodies: Bard and Ceilidh (2019), Jubilate (2020), and Visible and Invisible (2021).
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Mary holds degrees in piano performance from Wheaton College Conservatory (B.M.), the Eastman School of Music (M.M.), and the Cleveland Institute of Music (D.M.A).