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Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford’s 43rd Christmas at Christ Church program is set for December 11 & 12, Friday at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday at 4:00. These annual gatherings feature both choral and instrumental Christmas music, a story, and a short carol-sing.This year’s program includes an eclectic selection of songs, both sacred and secular, to bring in the holidays. Under the direction of Tom Baehr, the Guilford Chamber Singers present perennial favorites “Carol of the Bells” and “Deck the Halls” with much earlier carols from the 14th to the 17th centuries.

To these are added contemporary pieces “Bethlehem Spiritual” and “The Winter’s Night,” a hauntingly beautiful and evocative song that has become the group’s favorite; an entertaining setting of “Winter Wonderland” and even an arrangement of “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.” “Come, Dear Children” by Alfred Burt is an invitation to participate in the season’s festivities.

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 5, with the 45th 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.

Terry Larsen, a resident of Southampton, Mass., returns for a ninth season to lead the Sing. He brings over twenty-five years of experience as a music teacher, choral singer, soloist, and conductor to his role at the helm. William McKim, who has played the organ at this event for twenty-seven past seasons, and officially “retired” twice from doing so, agreed to step in on short notice when UVM’s David Neiweem, who played for the Sing in 2014, broke a collarbone in late October.

Brattleboro, Vt. – As part of its 50th Anniversary Season, Friends of Music at Guilford is presenting a special guest-artist concert combining the Early Music repertoire with recently composed pieces that bridge the centuries of musical expression in between. Considered one of the world’s finest vocal chamber ensembles, New York Polyphony will perform its “Faith & Reason” program on Sunday, September 27 at 4:00 p.m. in the sanctuary of Centre Congregational Church at 193 Main Street in Brattleboro.

They have toured widely in the U.S. and Europe, appearing at major international festivals and prestigious music series. Their 2013 and 2014 CDs were Grammy-nominated, and a number of their albums have made the “Top 10” lists of The New Yorker, Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine.

Guilford, Vt. – The opening weekend of Friends of Music at Guilford’s 50th Anniversary Season is dedicated to founder A. Graham Down (1929-2014), who brought the c. 1897 Guilford Tracker Organ to the Barn over a half-century ago, and funded its renovations and improvements over the years; he performed on it in 1966-69 and several times since 2001.

The music begins as usual with a Saturday night Organ Concert in the Barn at 7:30. This year’s guest performer is Susan Summerfield, music professor and college organist at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vt. Her program, “Traditions,” includes works by Baroque masters J. S. Bach, Pierre Dandrieu, and Louis Couperin; C. P. E. Bach from the start of the classic period; and 20th-century composers Darius Milhaud and Lou Harrison, whose pieces employ certain Baroque elements. A cake and champagne reception follows.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford’s traditional season finale on Saturday, June 13, is a three-part event dubbed “A Cappella à la Carte.” Set at Guilford Community Church, just off Rt. 5 near 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.

    The FOMAG Annual Membership Meeting at 6 p.m. is typically short and entertaining, about 30 minutes, and offers a summary of the year, a look ahead to next season—in this case, it will be the organization’s 50th Anniversary Season featuring some special elements—and election of the board of trustees.

Guilford, Vt. — Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) is hosting its 7th annual Spring Recital & Holiday Cookoutbeginning at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 24, at Tree Frog Farm in idyllic rural Guilford. This year’s Tracker Organ program focuses on music from the North German baroque, repertory for which the c. 1897 instrument is uniquely suited. 

All the works on the program, except one, are concerted. The exception is Dietrich Buxtehude’s Toccata in F, played by the afternoon’s guest organist, Ken Olsson. It starts the show with some virtuosic fireworks.  

Set on Saturday, April 18, in an elegant Hillwinds home in Brattleboro, Friends of Music at Guilford’s celebration of Women in Music is its signature annual fundraiser. Patrons will enjoy a generous buffet of hearty hors d’oeuvresand salads between 6 and 7 p.m. This year’s concert then features vocalist Jessica Gelter and pianist Ken Olsson in a centennial tribute to legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf (1915-1963). An array of desserts prepared by area restaurant and bakery chefs follows.

Edith Piaf, who was “discovered” as a street singer while still in her teens, took the Paris cabaret scene by storm and became regarded as France’s national diva. She was also one of its greatest international stars and mentored many other aspiring performers. Piaf’s music was often autobiographical: her singing reflected her life, a contemplation of femininity, love, and home, sprinkled liberally with loss and sorrow. The program will cover a mix of Piaf’s iconic hits and less-familiar songs, among them La Vie en Rose, Rien de Rien, La Belle Histoire d’Amour, Mon Dieu, and more.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th year of producing concerts and stage projects in the region, is looking for a few more singers to participate in its A Cappella à la Carte season finale on Saturday, June 13.

The Guilford Chamber Singers are being directed for a third season by composer/arranger and instrumentalist Tom Baehr, of Putney, who sings tenor in several regional choirs and choruses. With a nautical theme this June, the Chamber Singers will reprise “Crossing the Bar,” Rani Arbo’s setting of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem.

If February didn’t exist, who would dare to invent it? But since it does, Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th season, has chosen the 21st of that unloved month to present LIGHT AND VARIABLE: Music to Defy February featuring the woodwind quintet Variable Winds in a program designed to take your mind off it.

“Light” may not be the first word you’d connect with Gustav Mahler, but the settings he made early in his career of poems from the folk collection “The Youth’s Magic Horn” are exactly that: tuneful, witty, and charming. Arranged by Trevor Cramer for wind quintet are three songs about music, “Rhine Legend,” “Who Thought Up This Little Song?” and “In Praise of Higher Understanding,” in which a singing contest between a cuckoo and a nightingale is judged by a donkey. (Think “Bavarian Idol.”)

Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th concert season, has been presenting a 3-day Music Enrichment residency for the Guilford Central School (GCS) for seven seasons. Master teacher Todd Roach, a drummer-percussionist based in Brattleboro, and a number of his performing colleagues have been working with the upper grades at GCS in rhythm, voice, and instrumental workshops. Participants demonstrate what they have been learning at an assembly performance for the whole school on the final day.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford’s 42nd Annual Christmas at Christ Church program, featuring choral and instrumental music, a holiday reading, and carols, is set for 8:00 p.m. on Friday, December 12, and 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 13. Christ Church is at the corner of Rt. 5 south and Melendy Hill Road in the Algiers Village of Guilford.
      
This season’s theme for the program — “All My Heart Rejoices!” — is reflected in nine mostly familiar holiday song texts in unfamiliar arrangements by composers from the past five centuries, including Arthur Sullivan’s “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” and Charles Gounod’s “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Choral director Tom Baehr’s composing and arranging skills, featured in the repertoire of several recent Chamber Singers concerts, are represented in the version of “All My Heart This Night Rejoices!” being performed this weekend.

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 6, with the 44th 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.

This year marks the return of conductor Terry Larsen for an eighth season at the helm after a few years’ hiatus. A music teacher in private and public schools for twenty-five years, Larsen was a member of the famed Chanticleer singers and director of the Napa Valley Symphony Chorus when he lived on the West Coast. Now a resident of Southampton, Mass., he has directed the Manchester (Conn.) Symphony Chorus and the Pioneer Valley Symphony Chorus, and is director of the Schola Nova choral ensemble.

All Souls Day falls on Sunday, November 2, and marks a collaboration between Brattleboro Area Hospice and Friends of Music at Guilford. FOMAG’s “Rest in Peace” concert, co-directed by Tom Baehr and Amy Cann, begins at 3:00 p.m. that afternoon in the sanctuary of Guilford Community Church. Two song series and a few instrumental interludes are featured in this first of four arts programs—including music, art, film, and theater—scheduled during the “Love Lives On” series honoring Hospice’s 35th Anniversary in November.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford’s 49th annual Labor Day Weekend Festival presents organ music in an intimate rural barn and orchestral works on the lawn just outside by composers from five countries who span four centuries.

The Festival opens on Saturday evening, August 30, at 7:30 with “Bs of the Baroque & More” on the Guilford Tracker Organ by William McKim, who has performed a number of past recitals of solo and ensemble works on this instrument. McKim has been organist for Friends of Music’s annual Community Messiah Sing in Brattleboro for 28 of the past 32 seasons and also performed as featured pianist or piano accompanist for several other Friends programs.

GUILFORD, Vt. — Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 48th season, presents an “A Cappella à la Carte” evening on Saturday, June 14, as the finale to its annual calendar. As usual, the evening’s three-part menu of membership meeting, all-community potluck, and a cappella concert takes place at Guilford Community Church, just a short distance from Exit 1 off Interstate 91.

The festivities begin at 6 pm with a brief and merry Friends of Music membership meeting. Folks can sign up on the spot and participate in voting for the upcoming year’s board of trustees, as well as symbolically ratify the current board’s actions in the fiscal year just ending. Preliminary plans for the 49th annual season of concerts are shared with everyone present.

Guilford, Vt. — Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) presents its 6th annual Spring Organ Recital at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 25, in the Organ Barn at idyllic Tree Frog Farm in the Guilford countryside. For this Memorial Day Weekend recital, Ken Olsson has chosen a singularly appropriate program: music by 19th-century Americans. Not only does it suit this national holiday; it also reflects FOMAG’s continuing interest in American composers, most specifically those associated with New England. And it suits the organization’s Guilford Chamber Organ, with a console dating back to the late 19th century, when it was installed in a church in Maine.

There were organs in America as far back as the early colonial era, but not many; the Puritan tradition frowned on instrumental music in church services. Still, by 1800, Boston boasted eight church organs, New York and Philadelphia five or six, and many other cities throughout the colonies claimed at least one. Wealthy private households had organs, too. Early instruments were imported, but by the mid-18th century the emerging nation had developed an organ-building industry. There wasn’t much published organ music, since church organists mostly accompanied hymns; interludes were improvised. Organ music for concert use was virtually unknown until decades later.

Marlboro, Vt. — Friends of Music at Guilford presents its 5th Annual Celebration of Women in Music, the organization’s signature season fundraiser, at a private home atop Ames Hill in Marlboro on Saturday, April 26. Guests are treated to a generous buffet of hearty hors d’oeuvres and salads to enjoy on arrival, then are offered a sampling of desserts after the concert program, which begins at 7.