Welcome summer with Soiree at the Museum in Bryn Athyn June 1st

Celebrate the beginning of summer with “Summer Soirée at the Museum” on Friday, June 1, 7-11:00pm at Glencairn Museum. Enjoy music, dessert selections, beer and white wine in the Museum’s serene and lovely cloister garden, and then explore other select areas of the Museum at your leisure with friends and other guests.

Purchase your tickets early for this limited-admission event: $30, $20 for Museum members and designated drivers; must be 21 to attend. Tickets and information: 267.502.2990 or info@GlencairnMuseum.org.

“Last year’s evening in the cloister was so popular that we’ve decided to make this ‘summer-opener’ an annual event,” says Joralyn Glenn, Glencairn’s marketing and public relations coordinator.

“While our tours are more structured and our concerts, festivals, seasonal programs and workshops each have a specific focus, the Soirée is simply a time to relax into summer, wander a beautiful setting and enjoy Glencairn’s unique features at your own pace.”

Besides strolling through the medieval-styled cloister garden, guests also have access to the visual and aural delights of LED-lit fountains on the North terrace and in the cloister, first-floor Museum collections in the Great Hall and Upper Hall, the current temporary exhibition, and much-coveted views from the tower as evening falls.

The cloister at the former home to the Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn family replicates in smaller scale the serene covered colonnades and open quadrangles attached to European cathedrals, monasteries and convents to provide protected walkways for the religious orders living there.

The Pitcairns chose an avian theme for their cloister’s stone work, so observant visitors will find a variety of birds carved into the capitals of the supporting columns. The tranquil setting also features white-themed gardens laid out by award-winning designer Danielle Odhner, who created and maintains the gardens at Bryn Athyn Cathedral as well as Glencairn.

The current temporary exhibition, on view in the first floor of Glencairn in the Upper Hall, is titled A Window to the Soul: Nishan Yardumian’s Biblical Art. Open through Sunday, November 4, the exhibition focuses on Nishan Yardumian (1947-1986), a Bryn Athyn local. Yardumian taught painting in Bryn Athyn for many years, at both the Academy of the New Church Secondary Schools and Bryn Athyn College. A painter as well as a teacher, he was passionate about both professions. According to Yardumian, “Painting aims at the universal with the hopes that each individual can find his identification with it. Teaching aims at the individual with the hope of developing the universal.”

Glencairn Museum is at 1001 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn 19009. GlencairnMuseum.org.