Doulbeheader Wednesday!!!

This Wednesday, August 15, St. John's will host two concerts, one by flutist Lucy Bergin, part of our Noontime Concert Series, the other by Village Harmony, at 7:30 pm (see below for more info)

Lucy will be accompanied by pianist Scott Bailey, in a program of works by Marais, Bloch and Poulenc. This free concert begins at noon and will end by 12:45. You are invited to bring a bag lunch to eat. St. John's will provide drinks and cookies.

Lucy Bergin, 17, will be a senior at Westford Academy this fall. She has played the flute since the third grade and is currently in her fourth year of study with Nina Barwell at the New England Conservatory Preparatory Division. Lucy has played in the Youth Repertory Orchestra, the Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble, and has sung in the Youth Chorale at NEC. She is active in her high school music and theatre program, organizes classical concerts by local teenagers through the Westford Teen Arts Council, and is a worship leader for her church youth group. She is planning to pursue studies in language and music in college. As a lover of the French language and musical style, Lucy is excited to include the Poulenc Sonata in today's concert.

Scott Bailey is currently an adjunct professor of music at Westfield State College and private instructor of piano and accompanist at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He has served on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and works as a freelance accompanist and teacher throughout the Pioneer Valley as well as Berkshire County. He has accompanied or worked for various organizations in Western Massachusetts including the Hampshire Choral Society, The New Opera, Berkshire Lyric Festival, Mass MoCA, The Drury Drama Team, and the Greylock Theater Project. He is the music director at the First Congregational Church of North Adams, United Church of Christ, and is coordinator of their North County Music Series, a concert series featuring local and emerging musicians from Berkshire County and beyond..

and, later that day....
7:30 pm to be exact....

Village Harmony

the unique teen world music ensemble based in Vermont,
with special guest leaders Suzannah Park and Marytha Paffrath, presents
a concert in the sanctuary at 7:30 pm.

Admission at the door is $8, $5 for students and seniors.

The ensemble is jointly led by Paffrath and Park. Paffrath, a singer,

accomplished percussionist and avid student of world rhythms and
techniques, tours nationally and internationally with the acclaimed
world music ensemble Libana. She is also the director of the
Instrumental Music and Dance Program at the Cambridge Friend’s School
in Cambridge, MA. Park, a long time singer and leader with Village
Harmony and Northern Harmony, comes from a family of three generations
of traditional musicians and singers, and is well known throughout New
England for her work as a teacher and performer of traditional
Appalachian music and dance.

The concert program also includes: rousing American shape-note and
gospel songs, body percussion, music from the Balkans; Appalachian and
old time harmony songs; powerful West African drumming, and more. The
24 dedicated young singers are drawn from ten states in the US as well
as England and Canada, and they have just spent eight days in intensive
rehearsal retreat in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom learning the music and
culture of these songs in preparation for this concert tour.

Each summer Village Harmony repeats this process ten times, with six
different ensembles traveling through New England and three or four
different groups overseas, this summer in Bulgaria, Caucasus Georgia
and South Africa. Each group develops its own unique sound, but all
share some common traits: a powerful, natural, unrestrained, yet
unforced vocal sound; a remarkable variety of vocal styles and timbres,
as appropriate to the many varieties of ethnic and traditional music;
and the vibrant community among the singers which always includes the
audience in a joyous celebration.

Village Harmony’s many recordings and songbooks will be available for
sale at the concert.