fomag

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford has been providing the Guilford Central School with a Music Enrichment Program residency for the past six seasons, with partial funding from the Max Y. Seaton Trust. The balance of the budget is raised by a public concert in Brattleboro featuring the program’s residency artists and also, for the past three seasons, by a Spaghetti Supper held at the school.

This year’s pasta supper is set for Wednesday, March 26, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and is followed by a School Music Night concert; the school is at 374 School Rd. in Guilford Center. The menu includes pasta with a gluten-free option, a vegetarian sauce made from scratch, homemade meatballs for carnivores, green salad, artisan bread with plain or garlic butter, beverages, desserts and a sundae bar.

On Friday, March 14, at 8:00 p.m. in the Vermont Jazz Center performance space at the Cotton Mill Hill complex, Friends of Music at Guilford presents a “World Music & Jazz Roots” concert benefiting its annual Music Enrichment Program at Guilford Central School.

The Friday concert features two ensembles drawing on jazz and classical foundations as well as traditional instrumental and vocal music from around the world. They blend those roots and rhythms into World Music and jazz forms, often original and sometimes skillfully improvised, but always a masterful, creative fusion carrying their audience along on a joyful, soulful journey.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music’s 41st Annual Christmas at Christ Church program is set for 8:00 p.m. on Friday, December 13, and 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 15—note this departure from past years’ schedule for the reprise performance. Christ Church is at the corner of Rt. 5 south and Melendy Hill Road in the Algiers Village of Guilford.

        “Brightest & Best: Music to Welcome the Holy Child” is this season’s theme for the program. Since mid-September, Tom Baehr has been conducting rehearsals with sixteen Guilford Chamber Singers. Many have sung with Friends of Music for a long time, and others are new to this annual “pick-up” group but sing with other choirs and choruses in the area.

Brattleboro, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford, for a 43rd year, invites singers and music lovers in the Tri-State region to start their holiday season with its annual Community Messiah Sing on the first Saturday in December. Set again at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main Street in Brattleboro, the Sing’s permanent home since 1982, the event is a benefit for agencies serving the area’s homeless.

        This year the first Saturday falls on December 7, and the program is set to begin as usual at 1:00 p.m. with Clark Anderson at the helm as conductor for a third season. William McKim graciously stepped in for a 28th year as Sing organist when Christian Huebner, Centre Church’s resident organ master, learned that his ministerial ordination ceremony was set for the same afternoon. Messrs. Anderson and McKim will lead the assembled singers through the Christmas portion of Handel’s masterwork, plus a few other favorite sections from Parts II and III.

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford’s 48th annual Labor Day Weekend Festival presents French organ music in an intimate rural barn and orchestral works by composers from five countries on the expansive lawn just outside.

The Festival opens on Saturday evening, August 31, at 7:30 with “Vive la France!” on the Guilford Tracker Organ. Clark Anderson, who has performed recitals of solo and ensemble works by English and German composers on this instrument, has chosen a program of solo works by French composers from Pérotin le Grand (1180-1236) to Jean Langlais (1907-1991), including Couperin, Raison, Daquin, Boëly, Vierne, Gounod, and the ever-intriguing Anonymous.

Guilford, Vt. – Rehearsals begin in mid-September for Friends of Music at Guilford’s 41st Annual Christmas at Christ Church program in Guilford, to be performed on December 13 & 15. A few additional voices are sought to fill out the choral ranks; membership in Friends of Music is not required.

Tom Baehr, who is embarking on a second season as director of the Guilford Chamber Singers, has selected repertoire celebrating The Baby. The program title is “Brightest and Best,” from Jean Ritchie’s family carol. The music is again a cappella, possibly doubling some voices with instruments where appropriate.

For the past several years, Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 47th season, has been presenting an “A Cappella à la Carte” evening as the finale to its annual calendar. This year, the Guilford Chamber Singers are featured in “Melodies Steal Into My Heart,” the musical segment of this Saturday evening’s three-part menu. The setting is 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. Plans for the 48th annual season of concerts are shared with everyone present.

Guilford, Vt. – On Sunday, May 26, Friends of Music at Guilford presents “The Four Bs: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms & The Barn,” its 5th Annual Spring Recital at the Organ Barn in rural Guilford. The 3:00 p.m. concert will feature the “Dynamic Two-O” of organist Kenneth Olsson and soprano Julie Johnson Olsson, with an assist by the Guilford Chamber Players.

Brattleboro, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford is beginning rehearsals next week for its “A Cappella à la Carte” concert season finale on Saturday, June 8, which follows its brief annual membership meeting and a community potluck dinner at Guilford Community Church in the Algiers village of Guilford.

The Guilford Chamber Singers will be led again by Tom Baehr, who conducted a group of nearly twenty singers for the organization’s Christmas at Christ Church program in December. Entitled “Melodies Steal Into My Heart,” the proposed spring program begins with madrigals, travels through 19th Century English Part Songs, and also includes some 20th Century tunes, a couple of 21st Century works, and even some Hoagy Carmichael.

DATURA TRIO & SILK ROAD’S SHANAHAN PERFORM ON MARCH 8

Brattleboro, Vt. – On Friday, March 8, at 7:00 p.m., Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) presents a concert by the Datura Trio with guest percussionist Shane Shanahan, a founding member of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. Proceeds from the concert and a pre-concert supper, both set at the Vermont Jazz Center on Cotton Mill Hill, will benefit FOMAG’s Music Enrichment Program at Guilford Central School, where the Datura Trio is in residence on March 6-8. Student participants in rhythm and vocal workshops may also make an appearance at the evening concert.