Kelli Scarr’s “Lesser Mysteries” Series Culminates at Opus 40 May 1

On May 1, under a full moon at Opus 40, composer and vocalist Kelli Scarr will lead a gathering that resists easy categorization. Part performance, part ritual, part communal experiment, it marks the culmination of “Lesser Mysteries,” a spring series unfolding across the Hudson Valley that invites participants—not just audiences—into a shared process of reflection, transformation, and, tentatively, renewal.

The project grows out of Scarr’s long career in music—songwriting, film scoring, and performance—but takes a deliberate step away from conventional presentation. “I really just don’t want to play this in a bar,” she says. Instead, the work has evolved into something closer to an initiatory experience, drawing inspiration from ancient rites like the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which participants underwent a structured, communal encounter with mortality and rebirth.

That framework first entered Scarr’s orbit while she was developing new material inspired by Maureen Murdoch’s Heroine’s Journey, a counterpoint to Joseph Campbell’s more familiar narrative arc. What began as a concept for an album—songs tracking a cycle of transformation—expanded outward into a larger inquiry: what might it look like to build a contemporary version of those ancient communal rituals here in the Hudson Valley?

Last fall, Scarr tested that idea with two sold-out performances of “Greater Mysteries” at Widow Jane Mine. The results, by her account, were difficult to pin down but unmistakable in their impact. Participants described the experience as “alive,” something that lingered well beyond the event itself.

“Lesser Mysteries,” the spring iteration, widens the aperture. Rather than a single destination event, it unfolds as a sequence of gatherings leading up to the Opus 40 culmination. The structure mirrors the initiatory arc Scarr is borrowing from: preparation, encounter, and return.

The series opens April 17 at the Arts Society of Kingston with “Ereshkigal’s Garden,” a workshop on green burial practices led by Ash Scribe, grounding the project in ecological and existential realities. On April 19, “Threshold by Candlelight” brings the Mid-Hudson Valley Threshold Choir into Tempo Kingston for an immersive vocal ritual that acknowledges grief as a communal experience. Additional programming includes “Psyche’s Quest,” a weekend workshop led by mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla exploring the myth of Eros and Psyche, and “The Problem of the Return,” a storytelling gathering focused on how moments of transformation translate—or fail to—into everyday life.

These collaborators are central to the project’s evolution. Svehla, whom Scarr describes as a “mythology mentor,” has worked with her for several years, shaping both the conceptual framework and the discipline of the work. Ritualist Mary Evelyn Pritchard, based in Woodstock, brings an attention to place and process that Scarr credits with deepening the integrity of the experience, from site-specific preparation to the smallest details of presentation.

The May 1 gathering at Opus 40 draws these threads together. Rather than presenting a fixed composition, Scarr and her collaborators will create what she calls a “living score,” with musicians positioned throughout the landscape—some in the surrounding woods, others near Harvey Fite’s monumental stonework—responding in real time to the movement and energy of the participants.

“The main difference this time,” Scarr says, “is that the music is in support of the ritual.” Participants will move through the site together, guided by a set of shared questions: What is beginning? What wants to be born? What might emerge from this moment of collective uncertainty?

That uncertainty is not incidental. Scarr speaks plainly about the broader context—a period she describes as a “polycrisis,” marked by overlapping social, ecological, and personal pressures. The aim is not to resolve those tensions, but to create a space where people can sit with them, in company, and perhaps reorient.

For all its mythic scaffolding, the project resists insularity. “My plumber was there sitting next to my yoga teacher—that’s the goal,” Scarr says. The Hudson Valley, with its mix of backgrounds and sensibilities, becomes not just a setting but a test case: whether a shared language can emerge from the simplest common ground—seasonality, landscape, the fact of being here together.

If the fall gatherings were about endings, “Lesser Mysteries” turns toward beginnings. Whether that shift feels aspirational or necessary may depend on the participant. Either way, Scarr is betting that the act of coming together—deliberately, attentively—still carries a certain transformative charge.