fomag

Guilford, Vt. –  Now in its 52nd season, Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) has a long history with “Stage Music Projects.” These have ranged from musical theater song revues to concerts of arias and art song presented by some of the region’s acclaimed operatic performers. Also in the mix were fully staged but less well-known Broadway or off-Broadway shows and premieres of one-act or full-length operas created by some of the organization’s musically gifted founders, among other composers.
 
This fall, FOMAG is teaming up with New Hampshire’s Raylynmor Opera for a concert at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 1, in the sanctuary of Guilford Community Church, a program of the singers’ favorite arias. Since its founding in 1995, Raylynmor has presented 38 full-length operas at various locations in our “twin state.” Raylynmor’s artistic director since 2014 is tenor Benjamin Robinson, who has performed in professional productions and concert settings from Alaska to the East Coast. He was featured in Pirates of Penzance for Raylynmor in 2011 and has helped diversify and expand the organization’s vision since taking the reins.
 
Robinson has been working with FOMAG to create this weekend’s special potpourri of operatic delights, “Viva la Voce!” Featured singers, who have all appeared in Raylynmor productions, include sopranos Molly McCoy and Julie Olsson, as well as bass-baritone Tom Cochran. This trio of performers will be working with pianist Ken Olsson, himself a seasoned singer and musical director, as accompanist and coach.
 
Featured arias, to be presented with a bit of theatrical flair, are from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and La Bohème, Menotti’s The Old Maid and The Thief, Verdi’s Aïda and La Forza del Destino, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, Wagner’s Tannhäuser, and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. This last offering, the Dew Fairy’s aria, is a preview for Raylynmor’s season, which includes Hoiby’s Bon Appétit, a Julia Child cooking episode set to music, which is being paired tongue-in-cheek with Hansel and Gretel in November. Puccini’s Madame Butterfly follows in March and Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe in June. Tickets for these upcoming shows will be available at the concert on October 1.
 
Molly McCoy is a senior performance major at Keene State College, where she has been a student in Opera Workshop for three years and received the Julia McHale Award for performance excellence last year. She has been featured as Juliet in Britten’s The Little Sweep and Annette in Hans Krasa’s Brundibar. Last season she appeared as an ensemble member in Verdi’s Macbeth for Raylynmor and is returning as the Dew Fairy in this fall’s production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.
 
Julie Olsson and husband Ken Olsson, residents of Jamaica, Vt., have been performing for FOMAG audiences over the past six years. Julie is often a featured soloist, while Ken has appeared as piano accompanist in a variety of settings, as featured soloist for Organ Barn recitals in fall or spring, and as conductor of the Guilford Festival Orchestra that launches each season during Labor Day weekend. Julie and Ken met as Vocal Performance majors at Ithaca College, and both had extensive performing experience while there and with opera companies in the Northeast and Kansas City before settling together in Vermont. They have performed with a number of regional opera companies in the years since, including Raylynmor, and have appeared in or helped produce several Main Street Arts musicals in Chester. In 2013, the Olssons founded the Southern Vermont Lyric Theatre, which features an annual “Verdi in Vermont” concert and this season includes productions of La Bohème and A Little Night Music.
 
Tom Cochran, a 31-year resident of New Hampshire, grew up in a musical family in Pennsylvania, studying piano and baritone horn, and singing in glee club or church choir. He took up vocal study in the late 1990s with the Monadnock Chorus, moving on to maestro Phillip Lauriat and then mezzo-soprano Pamela Stevens to hone his command of performance and recital skills. He has sung with Granite State Opera, the Monadnock Music Festival, New England Chamber Choir, Nashua Symphony, and Raylynmor Opera. He is particularly fond of singing works in German and anything by Mozart.
 
Guilford Community Church is at 38 Church Dr. in the Algiers village of Guilford, just over a mile from Exit 1 off Interstate 91. Take Rt. 5 south to Bee Barn Rd. on the left just past the Guilford Country Store; Church Dr. heads left in just a couple hundred feet and leads right to the church and its large parking area. The building is handicap-accessible with an elevator from the ground floor to the sanctuary.
 
Suggested donation for “Viva la Voce!” is $15 per person, which includes a teatime dessert reception. For additional information, contact the FOMAG office at (802) 254-3600 or by email at office@fomag.org. Visit online at www.fomag.org.

Guilford, Vt. – As it has done for over a half-century, Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) opens its annual music season with a concert in a rural barn on Saturday night of Labor Day Weekend. The famed Organ Barn is in an idyllic setting near the state line where Guilford meets Leyden, Massachusetts. The intimate Barn seats about a hundred concertgoers, and on Sunday afternoon, two hundred or more people flock to the lawn outside the Barn for picnics and an orchestra concert.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) presents its 51st season finale on Saturday, June 17, an annual three-part event dubbed “A Cappella à la Carte.” Set at Guilford Community Church, just off Rt. 5 near Exit 1 off I-91, the evening includes a short meeting, a potluck dinner, and a 7:30 concert of vocal music. Each optional segment is open to the general public; admission to the concert is by donation.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG), now in its 51st Concert Season, is preparing for its 9th annual Spring Recital in the Organ Barn at Tree Frog Farm, the site of its founding event in 1966. Each season begins with an organ concert in this intimate barn on Labor Day Weekend. Over the past decade, a sort of “bookended” concert towards the end of FOMAG’s season has given the organization a second opportunity to celebrate its roots. This spring’s concert is at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, and is followed by an optional holiday cookout.

Now in its 51st season, Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) presents its 8th Women in Music Celebration, a house-concert gala, beginning at 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 23. “This fundraiser for our concert season includes three important elements,” explains administrator Joy Wallens-Penford. “

The Guilford Chamber Singers start rehearsals on February 27 in Brattleboro for their June 17 A Cappella à la Carte event. The Singers are sponsored by Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG), now in its 51st concert season. This program will present works by New England composers who have been featured in FOMAG concerts over the years, including at least three world premieres. Composers include Don McLean, Peter Amidon, and Anna Patton, as well as nationally renowned composers Alice Parker and Gwyneth Walker. There are openings for new and returning singers for
all voices. Contact Chamber Singers director Tom Baehr at (802) 387-2796 or the FOMAG office at (802) 254-3600 or .

Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 51st concert season, will present its annual Midwinter Musicale program on Saturday, February 25, at Guilford Community Church, just over a mile from Exit 1 off the Interstate. The evening will begin with a pre-concert soup supper at 6 p.m., continue at 7 p.m. with a concert featuring the HeartSoulVoice duo from Boston, and be capped by a dessert reception.

The pre-concert light supper, included in the $12 admission fee, will offer hearty homemade soups, Vermont bread and cheese, salad, and fruit. An array of desserts will be served at a post-concert reception.

Brattleboro, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford invites singers and music lovers in the Tri-State region to start their holiday season at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 3, with the 46th annual Community Messiah Sing, a benefit for the homeless. Centre Congregational Church, at 193 Main Street in Brattleboro, has been home for the Sing since 1982 and for a few prior seasons as well.

Anthony Speranza, a resident of Vernon, led the Sing from 1989 through 2001 and again in 2010. His interest in conducting began as a 6-year member of the St. Kilian Boychoir and School in New York State (from age 7 to 13); he later earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in conducting, and was vocal music teacher for the town of Brattleboro for many years. William McKim, who has played the organ at this event for twenty-eight past seasons, and officially “retired” twice from doing so, now has his sights on continuing in this role as long as he can. Joyana Damon, in her eighteenth year as instrumental and classroom music teacher at Vernon Elementary School, and a performer with a number of Tri-State groups, will be featured on trumpet this season.

Brattleboro, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford presents the Vermont Virtuosi Flute Ensemble, seven of the finest orchestral and solo flutists in New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, at 7:30 p.m on Saturday, October 1, in the sanctuary of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. The Barre Montpelier Times-Argus says, “Vermont Virtuosi concerts are
now among the most rewarding chamber music performances in the state.”

“Pipe Dreams 5” is the back-by-popular-demand fifth public program by Vermont’s only professional flute choir. Playing five different types of flute, from petite piccolo to colossal contrabass, the ensemble will perform transcriptions of works by Bernstein, Vivaldi, Doppler, Debussy, Gershwin, and Leroy Anderson as well as original works by Vermont composers David Gunn and Dennis Bathory-Kitsz—whose piece was commissioned by Vermont Virtuosi.

Guilford, Vt. – As it has done for a half-century, Friends of Music at Guilford opens its annual music season with a concert in a rural barn on Saturday night of Labor Day Weekend. The Organ Barn is at Tree Frog Farm in an idyllic setting near the state line where Guilford meets Leyden, Massachusetts. The intimate Organ Barn seats about a hundred concertgoers, and on Sunday afternoon, two hundred or more people flock to the site for picnicking and an orchestra concert outside the Barn.

At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 3, what is usually billed simply as “an organ concert in the barn” will be performed on both the resident c. 1897 tracker organ and a “visiting” harpsichord with transverse flute and vocal soloist. Featured performers are the duo Les Inégales—Christine Gevert, organ and harpsichord, and Rodrigo Tarraza, traverso—with colleague Nicholas Tamagna, countertenor. Their “Music in the Age of Enlightenment” program includes works by J. S. Bach, Telemann, Corelli, Handel, and their somewhat less-famous contemporaries Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Jean-Henri d’Anglebert, and Johann Christoph Pepusch. The repertoire includes pieces for solo organ or harpsichord, as well as a variety of duets and trios.

Guilford, Vt. – Now in its 50th concert season, Friends of Music at Guilford is staging its series finale at a hilltop property in Guilford, not far from the junction of Hinesburg Rd. and Carpenter Hill Rd. The main house and yard overlook an impressive view of neighboring and distant hills, and the recently constructed barn offers shelter in case of inclement weather. The festivities are set for 5:00 to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 25.

As usual, the annual A Cappella à la Carte menu offers three distinct elements: a membership meeting, a community potluck, and a vocal concert. The brief and entertaining Annual Membership Meeting sums up the year’s events, introduces plans for the following season, and offers a slate of trustees for a vote, among other agenda items. The gathering is open to all interested folks, but only members can participate in any voting; one can join the organization on the spot to participate fully in the meeting.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG), now in its 50th Anniversary Season, has been presenting a series of programs with Baroque-era works from Bolivia that have been hidden away for centuries. Since presenting the new, the unusual, and the underperformed is a central mission of the organization, this project has been a fitting element of its half-century season.

The third and final event in the series is on Sunday, May 29, at 3 p.m. in the intimate barn at Tree Frog Farm, where FOMAG now hosts concerts on both Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends. Located off Packer Corners Rd. in idyllic rural Guilford, the barn is home to the organization’s c. 1897 Tracker Organ. One of FOMAG’s founders, the late A. Graham Down (1929-2014), purchased the instrument in Maine, moved it to the barn, invested in its restoration and improvements over the years, and performed the first concerts on it.

Now in its 50th season, Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) presents its 7th Women in Music Celebration, an annual house-concert gala, beginning at 6 p.m. on Sunday, April 24.

“This fundraiser for our concert season includes three important elements,” explains administrator Joy Wallens-Penford. “A bounty of good food, some delightful music, and a special Silent Auction with a few gift certificates to restaurants and merchants as well as a wide range of 2-for-1 tickets to arts events around the region. We help to promote other organizations’ events and garner vital support for the many free and affordable programs we present in the community.”

Friends of Music at Guilford seeks additional voices for its Chambers Singers in preparation for its yearly “A Cappella à la Carte” event and 50th birthday party on Saturday, June 25, at a hilltop property in Guilford. The gathering will include a brief annual meeting, a festive potluck meal, and concert sets by the Singers and the Singcrony women’s quartet. Other music-making may emerge as plans develop. The Chamber Singers will perform love songs by Dowland, Elgar, Holst, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Young & Heyman, Healey Willan, and the group’s director, Tom Baehr; one or two others may be added. Rehearsals begin Monday, February 22, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Guilford Community Church. Contact Baehr at (802) 387-2796 or tombaehr@myfairpoint.net with questions or to join the group.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 50th Anniversary Season, presents the second of three programs featuring Bolivian Baroque music from an archive of nearly 13,000 pages of recently collected manuscripts. The “Barroco Boliviano” concert begins at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 20, in the sanctuary of Guilford Community Church, just a mile south on Rt. 5 from Exit 1 off I-91 in Brattleboro.

This treasure trove of Baroque-era manuscripts was a sort of Holy Grail for musicologist Fr. Piotr Nawrot, a native of Poland who arrived in Bolivia in the early 1990s after spending a few years in Guatemala. He traveled the Bolivian countryside seeking out church elders with carefully hidden or, in some cases, unfortunately neglected materials first composed and performed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Spaniards took over that area of the Inca Empire, and then forgotten when the Spanish colonial period ended in the early 19th century. Fr. Nawrot has spent many years preparing a significant amount of this music for publication and performance by a new generation of musicians, both in Bolivia and around the world.