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.
This year’s musical interlude is devoted to works by composer Elise Grant (b. 1943), a resident of Dublin, N.H., and Stamford, Conn., who has been featured on a number of prior Friends of Music programs. Nine arias from her comic opera “Santé et Prospérité,” premiered in Switzerland in the mid-’90s, will be sung by soprano, mezzo, and tenor with piano accompaniment, some also with flute or oboe. The chamber music segment of the program will include “Interlude” for flute; “Waltz” for English horn and piano; “Pond in the Forest,” for flute and piano; “Planets in Orbit” for flute, horn, and piano; and a delicious rendition of “The Owl and The Pussycat” for soprano, oboe, and piano.
Tenor James Anderson is familiar to Brattleboro area audiences from a variety of opera and other musical settings, including Friends of Music at Guilford’s Community Messiah Sing. Jim spent many years performing opera in Europe before returning stateside to settle in Brattleboro.
The flutist for this concert is Robin Matathias, who teaches flute and directs flute ensembles at both the Brattleboro Music Center and Keene State College. She has performed on both the East and West coasts as a soloist and in orchestral, opera, chamber, and jazz ensembles.
The other performers are based in Elise Grant’s New Hampshire musical orbit, including sopranos Amy Knight and Amy St. Louis, ang mezzo Lauren Weiner. Lauren is an award-winning junior Vocal Performance major at Keene State College and a featured soloist with several KSC musical groups this season. Amy St. Louis is a senior Music Education major also featured in several KSC musical groups and theatrical productions. Amy Knight has appeared as a soloist with the Norway Pond Festival Singers, the Nashua Chamber Choir, and the Monadnock Chorus; she has also appeared in premieres of several chamber operas by contemporary New England composers, including Lawrence Siegel and the Baxtraxoi Ensemble.
Cheryl Sharrock, piano, is on the adjunct faculty at Keene State as accompanist and teacher. Her musical career includes being a church music director, composing, arranging, and accompanying for choirs, vocal and instrumental recitals, operas and musicals. Her husband Jim Sharrock is an experienced conductor and has been a professional oboist/English hornist since 1982. Jim is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Keene State, has been the artistic director of the Monadnock Chorus, and conducted for Raylynmor Opera.
A very popular annual Silent Auction of 2-for-1 tickets to regional music, theater, and dance performances, plus a few Gift Certificates and other tempting items, will offer some deals very hard to resist—bidders will save money and FOMAG will benefit from every dollar of their purchase.
Sponsors for the Women in Music benefit for FOMAG’s current 48th Season include the Brattleboro Retreat, Cheryl Wilfong: The Meditative Gardener, and PenTangle Studio, as well as a few supporting member households.
Admission is by suggested donation of $35 per person. Reservations are required, so please contact the Friends of Music office to get further information at (802) 254-3600 or by email at office@fomag.org.
