Welcome to the Muusic 4UU Blogsite! We’re starting the second half of Season Two and we’re so excited about our success of our fall 2023 offerings. It’s always so great to see something that has been created take flight, but the real success is in the followers and supporters that get on board with us, the creative team.
Soooo, if you are reading this, you are either one of those supporters, or you just got here because you found the QR code on one of our posters or postcards and scanned it. If you are in the former camp:
THANK YOU!!!
If you’re a newcomer to Muusic 4UU: WELCOME!
Here you will find all the information you need to know (or ever hope to!) about all our performances that we present throughout a season. We will add all the program and performer information for each concert as it comes up, so you may have to scroll down a bit to find the one you are currently attending. But just think, almost no paper waste, low printing costs, and information that can be archived and still available for all time … we’re green, baby!
WHO ARE WE?
We are all members of the group of musicians who live and work in the Peterborough, NH area; some of whom attend the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church (hence the proliferation of UU in our logo!). Coming out of the pandemic and seeing an opportunity to bring back live music, we’re starting a series of concerts to help bring more music and joy into the world. Our performers are professionals — local and regional and our groove is uh, shall we say diverse? From folk and jazz, to blues and country, to classical and opera — our plan is to keep it interesting and representative of who we are in our musical souls up here in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
Muusic 4UU is sponsored by The Bessie Foundation and RBC Wealth Management.
Maple TreeO — sturdy as an oak, twisted as a bonsai
Maple TreeO, that music group that has a name based on a tree based on a type of ensemble, based on a silly pun, has been around for awhile, but we’re not sure that folks ‘round these parts know that much about them. So, I decided to chase them all down – not an easy task, I assure you – to get them to talk about themselves. We met at the Home Town Diner in Rindge over Eggs Benedict and Coffee and it quickly disintegrated into non-sequiturs, jokes, puns, witticisms, paronomasia, and calembour (ok, I went to the Thesaurus).
Here below is our conversation, edited for decency. In full disclosure, we are all on the Board of Directors for Muusic 4UU, the name itself a pun.
Lucinda How did you get that name? I think David had something to do with it.
Eric Blackmer I think David had something to do with it. Though I doubt if the original name came from him, but the Trio probably did. Right.
Joy Flemming It was fall time. Or spring time. Might have been spring time.
Eric We went out and took a picture near your maple tree. That was after we had the meeting.
David Flemming And I’ve been seeing the leaves fall off the maple trees. So they were in my mind.
Eric But this is clearly maple country. So I think that’s probably why.
Lucinda I’m thinking David probably said, Maple Tree. Oh.
Eric Like that. That’s the kind of thing.
Joy And then we had endless discussions whether it should be Trio. Or Tree-OH. Or many other iterations of Trio.
Eric I was very happy because I have a terrible sense of humor, just like David does. And that we would agree to do something as bizarre as this. I like that. That’s funny.
David Yeah. You see, he’s just as bad as I am.
Lucinda Well, David never can. David has no restraint.
Eric It’s a constant with David.
Eric We all met because we were living in town. Our kids were friends.
Joy But we didn’t start playing music together until very recently.
Eric It started out where David needed to be playing some Irish tunes. After a while it started getting pretty good and Joy was sitting at the sidelines saying this is fun. I wasn’t aware of that but suddenly all three of us were playing and it just clicked.
Lucinda Something along the lines of serendipity.
Eric It was very serendipitous. It’s not exactly what you’d call marriage is the wrong word. There’s a better word for it. Melding?
Lucinda Synchronicity.
Joy Eric is pretty much very trained. You went to Berkeley for all those years.
Eric I never went to Berkeley.
JoyI always thought you did.
Eric I went to UMass. UMass Boston where I learned how to juggle.
David He’s a bloody genius.
Eric I have good microphones.
Joy We used to do the Parish Hall open stage at the Unitarian at the PUUC. Eric was the sound guy and he would almost always play a set. Then we would play something classical. Then Eric and David started jamming together on Irish music. David plays both sides – he plays classical music but he’s always known how to jam and play jazz.
David I’m a non-binary flautist.
Joy Then you started teaching me how to get off the paper. A friend of ours, Allison, said that I was paper trained.
Lucinda A good thing for a bassoonist.
Joy The summary is Eric’s more of a rhythm guitar player, chord charts, playing by ear, singer-songwriter. David is classically trained but also can jam. Then I came kind of late to jamming and David taught me how to jam by saying pick a nursery tune like Old McDonald and play it on all the keys. Then when we came together, then I started playing bass line. So this is the first time that I’ve started playing bass line, just from the chords.
Eric David often starts out playing the melody on the flute I’m sort of plunking along doing supportive chords. Joy’s doing everything else. Running bass and doing little flourishes and counter melodies, doing the harmonies. So in terms of the jamming mentality. You probably do it best because you really do.
Joy Truth be told, David sometimes takes liberties with the tempo within the measure.
David I’m not sure whether it’s liberties or lack of control.
Eric But every time it comes down to Joy’s turn to take the melody, things settle down to being clean, straight. It’s easier because when David’s taking liberties you have to really listen carefully. Learn to stay out of the way. And support the expression. With Joy it’s more like straight up and down numbers.
Lucinda Let’s talk about the repertoire and style of your music.
Eric We’re using quite a variety of genres. I think we’re coming around to the word: Old Timey. I was really hesitant to let that stand because it doesn’t seem like old timey.
Joy Some of it’s old timey.
David That tells us our age.
Eric From the perspective of my kids it’s really old timey. So that’s probably the most accurate description. The first song we play usually is Tea for Two. It’s a good warm up song. And then I think we’re following that right now with …
Joy Sentimental Journey.
Eric Sentimental Journey which is a totally different song … there’s no commonality. Then we do something totally different. Then we do a couple of Beatles songs and then something totally different. So it’s more like genre hopping.
Joy Genre hopping! I think he picked it.
Eric Anytime you have us figured out we’re going to do something different.
Lucinda Sounds like your sets are kind of pre-set? Or do you change sets from concert to concert?
David We’ve been mostly one set.
Eric Once in a while we ask ourselves is this the right order? Usually not.
Joy And so then we had a set list. And then we played with that for quite some time. And then we started adding in more stuff. So then we kind of melded the new stuff into the existing set.
Lucinda So how large is your repertoire now at this point? Like an hour and a half?
Eric A little longer than that.
Lucinda 20 tunes?
Joy No, many more than 20 tunes.
Eric Around 30.
Joy Because they’re all short.
David Squished together.
Lucinda Squished sets.
Joy Oh, we are so fun. The music is fun.
Eric There is definitely an element of humor. We don’t do any grunge.
Lucinda No grunge?
Joy No grunge. A lot of things people will recognize even if they don’t exactly know what the tune is. They’ll recognize it from having heard it in the background sometime. And there’s an element of humor that happens.
Lucinda Yeah, I was going to say the interplay. How about the interplay between you?
Eric There’s three people who say totally ridiculous things in a row. Joy more.
Joy I’m more the straight person. But every once in a while I come up with something that makes everybody laugh.
Eric With David and I, the banter is …
Joy Pun, pun, pun, pun, pun.
Eric And then Joy will come along with something that puts us both to shame.
Joy I try.
David Punish the audience.
Joy I guess we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
Eric We’re playing music we love.
Joy And it’s like we’re not performing for you. We want you to be part of what’s happening. Feel it in your heart. Hum along. Toe tapping. You’re going to know a lot of tunes.
Lucinda Drawing in the audience is not easy to do. How do you go about that?
Joy I think with jokes and with communicating directly to people who are sitting there. A lot of eye contact. We know a lot of people who are our audience. But we are always looking to meet new people. We play every Friday morning at the Bagel Mill from 10.30 to noon. And there are always people that we know and always new people. And a lot of times the new people will come up and ask us questions. We share information.
David Something else to do on a Friday morning.
Lucinda What else are you up to, besides this concert?
Joy Somebody from Bedford who had grown up around here said they have a summer garden party. And they invited us to play for their summer garden party. Other things; we’re going to be playing in Deering in the summer. And we’ve got some other stuff in the summertime. Some gazebos come to mind.
Eric (musing) How do you connect with the audience?
David Electrical outlets.
JoyThat was a shocking remark.
David We’re just trying to stay current. We don’t put up much resistance.
Lucinda You tell me, what is my last question?
Joy I would like to say something about mood. That the mood that when people listen to our music they end up feeling happier than they were before. Our music makes people happy.
David Largely to do with bringing people together. Strengthen friendships.
Joy I think it’s important maybe it’s important that we are three sevenths of the Muusic 4UU Committee. So we have this mission to bring more live music to town.
Eric Yeah. It’s a lovely mission. I want to support live music. That’s why I’m doing this. We just didn’t have any for a while. In fact I think we’re kind of bucking the trend in some ways with Muusic 4UU. A lot of people don’t go out to music anymore. They just don’t. Why? iPods. Spotify. Your own playlist.
Joy Pajamas. If you stay home you can stay in your pajamas. If you go out you have to put on your clothes.
Lucinda We should plan a concert which is Pajama Day.
Eric Pajama party!
David Yes! If you take into account what we held as our mission we knew we wanted to get into it because we had a premonition.
Joy A premonition for the mission. Is that thing still on?
Skip Philbrick, blue guitarist extraordinaire
Skip Philbrick Blues Band, featuring Carl Querfurth on trombone
The blues changed my life. Its trajectory abruptly veered the first time I heard a Paul Butterfield album and by the time I was acquainted with Doc Watson, Elvin Bishop, Bonnie Raitt and others, I was no longer treading the path I thought I was on when I began my college years. After years of study in my own musical field (i.e. not blues) it was real treat to talk with this seasoned bluesman.
What hooked me was the vitality – I can’t even put it properly into words: When I listened to the blues I heard life. Life. Something so deep in the blood that it encompassed every yearning for existence before me. Artistic drive, carnal enthusiasm, sad joy and redemptive gumption.
Talking to Skip Philbrick is to reacquaint the self with that wild mixture of joy and anguish; something very real and fundamental to what it is to be human. Himself firmly rejecting the pull of technology (excepting a computer and his flip phone), he prefers a phone call over an email (for which he doesn’t have an account) and opened his first browser only fairly recently. While that might seem so unutterably quaint to some of us to make the outcry of “get a horse, dammit!”, it illustrates his keenly vital connection with life and with people while the rest of us are tethered to our highly addictive tech, tuning out all the rest.
Ask yourself then, what are the blues anyway? Skip has the answer and he’s here to lay it out, simply and forthrightly, on March 16 at 4pm at the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Sanctuary.
Skip has a righteous history. Getting started in the 1970’s with his first group of long-haired kids playing bar gigs and touring the area playing late nights and sharing an apartment, he confesses that even at through all that youthful enthusiasm, that life got old. Nevertheless he had a brush with the big time when he opened for Muddy Waters in 1975. Still, being a musician and making a living at it are two different things, and he did bouts of construction work before finding a way to do just music and be able to live as well. Not an easy task and it takes some real courage.
Always preferring to be a “sideman” – that benighted job description of always being the backup and never the star – he laid down those lines for his guys, letting someone else do the vocals. Touring and playing in a blues band is a pretty porous situation. Sometimes a band will open for a more “famous” band (i.e. more recording sales, more reviews, more large venue appearances), sometimes those band members will sit in casually or get hired to be a sideman. Skip has done all of this, having worked in some fashion with Jay Geils Band, Luther Henderson, Bo Diddley, Otis Rush and Duke Robillard, among others. So, he’s walked those boards.
But he seems to have two major sources of pride, other than the frontmen he’s worked with. One is winning the 2002 New England Blues First competition and the other is the people who have come to play with him. Here’s the line-up for the Muusic 4UU concert: Mike Wakefield on sax; Carl Querfurth on trombone, Tom Wright on guitar, Richard Doerty on Bass, and Jay Crowley on drums.
Through all this, through his incisive, penetrating comments on our current American malaise, through all his own careful position vis a vis technology, he still comes off humble; a real straight-ahead guy. He even says that he doesn’t know the names of notes (although he can identify an E minor chord just fine – but no artist can be an artist without having many sides), that he’s plays all by feel and instinct.
Angels We Have Heard on High – arr. Martha Lynn Thompson
Carillon and Bell Jubilee arr. Margaret Tucker
Jingle Bells – arr. L. Larson
Brass
And the Glory of the Lord – Handel arr. Thomas
Christmas Jazz Suite – Bill Holcombe
Bells
El Shaddai – M. Card, arr. Geschke
Fum, Fum Fum – arr. Stephson
O Little Town of Bethlehem – arr. Dobrinski
Brass
Just a Closer Walk With Thee – arr. Jack Gale
Four Christmas Quartets – arr. John Beyrent
Bells
Carol of the Bells – arr. McChesney
We Wish You a Merry Christmas – arr. Stephenson
Brass
Holiday Sing Along!
Program Notes:
Thrill to the festive sound of Handbells and Brass! Keene United Church of Christ Ringers on the Square join with Muusic 4UU’s very own Celestial Brass Ensemble for a joyous holiday themed concert in the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Sanctuary. Holiday favorites and a community sing along round out the program.
Ringers on the Square has been ringing handbells at the UCC in Keene, NH for over 40 years, and is led by Diantha Dorman. Diantha, a pianist and organist in addition to Bell Choir Director, has been leading two bell choirs at the UCC in Keene for over 20 years.
This concert will be a “rare public appearance outside of church” for the group. The 13 ringers play 5 Octaves (that’s 61 bells) of Schulmerich English Handbells. The bells, made in Pennsylvania, range from the lowest, at 7 pounds, to tiny, higher pitched ones.
The multiple ways to sound the bells (ringing, hitting with mallets, tapping on the tables, and swinging) and the light and airy sounds of chimes all enhance the ethereal quality of the group’s sound.
The Muusic 4UU Celestial Brass Ensemble includes Sheldon Ross and Dan Melbourne on trumpets (if you heard Sheldon play at the recent Messiah at the PUUC, you know you’ll want to hear him play again!), Peter Guidi on horn and Dan Walker on euphonium/trombone.
Suggested donation: $15
Singalong Lyrics
O Come All Ye Faithful
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem O come and behold Him, born the King of Angels
O come, let us adore Him … Christ the Lord
O sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation O come, o come ye to Bethlehem O come and behold Him, born the King of Angels
O come, let us adore Him … Christ the Lord.
Joy to the World
Joy to the world, the Lord is come Let earth receive her King Let every heart prepare Him room And Heaven and nature sing And Heaven and nature sing And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
He rules the world with truth and grace And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love And wonders of His love And wonders, wonders, of His love
O Little Town of Bethlehem
O little town of Bethlehem How still we see thee lie Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by Yet in thy dark streets shineth The everlasting light The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight
For Christ is born of Mary And gathered all above While mortals sleep, the angels keep Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together Proclaim thy holy birth And praises sing to God the King And peace to men on earth
Angels We Have Heard on High
Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains, and the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains:
Refrain: Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo
Shepherds, why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong? What the gladsome tidings be which inspire your heav’nly song? [Refrain]
Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh, hey Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh, hey Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh
Silent Night
Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night, holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia, Christ the Savior is born! Christ the Savior is born
Silent night, holy night! Son of God love’s pure light. Radiant beams from Thy holy face With dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
A Warm and Loving Holiday Season to Everyone!
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Welcome to our second season of the Muusic 4UU Blogsite! We’re so excited about our success of our beautiful first 2023 season of five fabulous concerts. It’s always so great to see something that has been created take flight, but the real success is in the followers and supporters that get on board with us, the creative team.
Soooo, if you are reading this, you are either one of those supporters, or you just got here because you found the QR code on one of our posters or postcards and scanned it. If you are in the former camp:
THANK YOU!!!
If you’re a newcomer to Muusic 4UU: WELCOME!
Here you will find all the information you need to know (or ever hope to!) about all our performances that we present throughout a season. We will add all the program and performer information for each concert as it comes up, so you may have to scroll down a bit to find the one you are currently attending. But just think, almost no paper waste, low printing costs, and information that can be archived and still available for all time … we’re green, baby!
WHO ARE WE?
We are all members of the group of musicians who live and work in the Peterborough, NH area; some of whom attend the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church (hence the proliferation of UU in our logo!). Coming out of the pandemic and seeing an opportunity to bring back live music, we’re starting a series of concerts to help bring more music and joy into the world. Our performers are professionals — local and regional and our groove is uh, shall we say diverse? From folk and jazz, to blues and country, to classical and opera — our plan is to keep it interesting and representative of who we are in our musical souls up here in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
Muusic 4UU is sponsored by The Bessie Foundation.
* * *
SCHEDULE, Autumn 2023
Saturday, Sept 16 McGettigan & Gilbert
Saturday, Oct 21: Virginia Eskin w/ Mary Seaver and John Joyce
Saturday, Nov 18: Tara Greenblatt — after Holiday Stroll.
Saturday, Dec 16 – Bells and Brass – Holiday music with the Ringers on the Square from the Keene UCC and a Brass Quintet
All concerts are held in the beautiful, historic sanctuary of the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, 25 Main St., Peterborough, NH
Concert times are 4:00 pm.
Past concerts:
The Tara Greenblatt Band
Saturday, November 18th at 4PM In the Sanctuary at the Peterborough UU (25 Main Street)
For those who aren’t yet familiar with Tara Greenblatt, you should know to expect “rolling infectious rhythms and a soulful soaring voice alive with the pulse of life.” Tara, who also plays with the Folk Soul Band, is an amazing drummer, a powerful singer and a world class songwriter. She will thrill you with her vivacious energy and extraordinary talents. Guaranteed!
Tara will be accompanied by Ramsay Thomas on bass and Richard Doherty on guitar. Together they will perform a repertoire of original material drawn from her four CDs. One can’t help but be moved emotionally, intellectually and physically by Tara’s music. She is that good and that deep! Her latest release, Let’s Wake Up, will be available for purchase.
The beautiful and newly upgraded UU Sanctuary is a stellar place to experience the wonder of a Tara Greenblatt concert.
Muusic 4UU is organized and operated by a group of local music lovers whose mission includes nurturing local musicians by providing a supportive setting where the audience can enjoy their music without commercial distractions. We are switching to a suggested donation format. It is more important to us that people come to our concerts than it is to charge a specific amount. You can donate what you want to contribute. A percentage of the income goes to the musicians, so please attend and enjoy our concerts. This will help us to support our local music scene.
This concert is sponsored by the Bessie Foundation.
* * *
Past concerts
Muusic 4UU Presents: Eskin, Seaver and Joyce. Saturday, October 21st, 4 pm. Sanctuary of the PUUC, 25 Main Street, Peterborough, NH. Admission $15 at the door.
Welcome to our blog for the October 21 concert. Well known pianist Virginia Eskin is honored to be joined in concert with local musicians Jon Joyce and Mary Seaver.
Virginia Eskin is a renowned musician. She has made numerous recordings including works by Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and with members of the Boston Symphony for chamber music. Her recent documentary film, First Ladies in Music, depicts Amy Beach’s life, her contributions to music and her inspiration to many later female composers. This film was broadcast on PBS.
Jon Joyce came from California to Vermont, fleeing COVID, and indulging in the cello. He now plays in the Keene Chamber Orchestra and the Windham Philharmonic. He received a Bachelor of Music in cello performance from CSUN at Northridge, CA at the age of 54.
Mary Seaver, a local clarinetist, spent most of her life around New Hampshire enjoying music from all over. She was also late getting to college and received a Master of Music in performance from UMass Amherst at the age of 52.
The concert consists of works by Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Brahms, Bernstein, and Copland. This program brings together the close relationships of these composers. Although these composers were not living in the same time frame, they all brought their deepest passions into their music. Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Brahms all belong in a group of closely tied musicians whose personal lives and musical careers were deeply related. Copland and Bernstein, both students of Nadia Boulanger, also had a lifelong deep friendship that propelled them through their musical careers. Come learn more about these relationships and their influence on each other’s music.
* * * *
* * *
McGETTIGAN AND GILBERT
PROGRAM NOTES
In the past annals of recording duos, most have brought their own take to a similar style of music. Mash-ups, while never discouraged, are not usual. And yet, one is reminded that in our lifetime there has been one mash-up duo that made their entire act around their theme song and branding motto: “We’re a little bit country, a little bit rock ‘n roll.” These were Donny and Marie Osmond, the sister/brother duo from the 1970’s who dominated the television variety shows from that period and before you wince with the remembrance, consider that they were actually quite good at what they did.
Suzanne McGettigan and her singing partner of just over a year, Larry Gilbert, are a similar case in point. Both are excellent musicians; they come from different backgrounds, and each perform from their separate points of view — but in this case it’s a bit of folk and a bit of jazz. I asked them a few questions to try and suss out what it is about this combination of sounds that works so well for them.
First things first: Suzanne and Larry, I know that you’ve been working individually or in other groups for a number of years, but tell me how you came about working together.
Suzanne and I met at the Greenfield NH farmer’s market after a correspondence from Band Mix, an ad marketing place where musician’s meet. We have been performing together for a little over a year.
I know you both come from different musical backgrounds, so tell me about the style of music you play and how you make folk and American Songbook work together.
Our first rehearsal we knew it was a fit, we knew the same songs, we heard the same harmonies, it just was a fit …
… and fitting harmonies is typical for folk and jazz ...
… Suzanne’s rhythmic chord progressions complemented Larry style of playing — our voices blended perfectly with our signature call and return vocals, dynamics was just the icing on the cake.
To follow that, just say a little bit about your background and how you developed as musicians? Lessons? Schooling?
Larry: My background is very diverse. Playing at a very young age I was exposed to many different styles. As I’ve aged, different styles of playing developed, from the folk, rock and jazz era. Today I’ve developed a style that combines a life time of playing guitar with a wide variety of techniques.
Suzanne: I also started playing guitar at a very young age. My interests focused on the folk music.
Larry: After becoming an accomplished singer/ songwriter Suzanne went on to record her album and opened for some notable acts. She was a regular at the famous Folk Way of Peterborough where she gained popularity in the music scene.
* * *
I wanted to ask them about their idols and influences but the conversation took a different direction. I’m left reflecting on some of what I’ve heard about these singers from the buzz around town and from local interviews such as the one write up by Bill Fonda in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in January of 2023. There is a huge body of repertoire in the folk music field and just as large, or larger, repertoire in jazz. So to try and pinpoint a particular approach of a particularly idolized artist may be pointless. Larry and Suzanne seem to have a very creative simpatico which takes its own direction.
As they work on finishing their first album, material around rock, jazz and gospel is mentioned, and steel guitar is considered as the perfect sound for a tune. The listener comes to understand that this is where music is going — the ground material for American music is pretty well established; now it’s time to explore, synthesize, develop. Throw some ideas at the wall and see where it takes us. For McGettigan and Gilbert the only real limitation is in whether their ideas can be performed live. This is the excitement inherent in following new groups because we’re hearing music history in the making.
Welcome to the Muusic 4UU Blogsite! You got here because you found the QR code on one of our posters or postcards and scanned it.
Lucky you! Because here you will find all the information you need to know (or ever hope to!) about all our performances that we present throughout a season. We will add all the program and performer information for each concert as it comes up, so you may have to scroll down a bit to find the one you are currently attending. But just think, almost no paper waste, low printing costs, and information that can be archived and still available for all time … we’re green, baby!
WHO ARE WE?
We are all members of the group of musicians who live and work in the Peterborough, NH area; some of whom attend the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church (hence the proliferation of UU in our logo!). Coming out of the pandemic and seeing an opportunity to bring back live music, we’re starting a series of concerts to help bring more music and joy into the world. Our performers are professionals — local and regional and our groove is uh, shall we say diverse? From folk and jazz, to blues and country, to classical and opera — our plan is to keep it interesting and representative of who we are in our musical souls up here in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
SCHEDULE, Spring and Summer 2023
Saturday, March 25, Grove Street
Saturday, April 22, Folk Soul Band
Sunday, May 21, Mill City Rags
Saturday, June 17, Wendy Keith and Friends
Saturday, July 15, Aquilonian Winds
All concerts are held in the beautiful, historic sanctuary of the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, 25 Main St., Peterborough, NH
Concert times are 3:00 pm.
* * *
SATURDAY, JULY 15
AQUILONIAN WINDS
JULIE ARMSTRONG, flute, began flute lessons with Holly Sanders at ConVal High School, then studied at Keene State College with Bonnie Insull and Eric Stumacher, and later with Alex Ogle at the Brattleboro Music Center. She taught beginning and middle school band for the Fall Mountain School District until her retirement. She currently performs with the Keene Chamber Orchestra, Fireside Winds, River Mill Flutes, and the annual Keene Lions Club musical.
GARY NOSENKO, oboe, began playing oboe in public school in northern New Jersey and studied privately with Juilliard oboe professor Melvin Kaplan. He has played in many chamber ensembles, orchestras, and theater productions in the tristate region. He is also a composer, arranger, program annotator, and essayist.
MARY SEAVER, clarinet, is a long-time musician in the Monadnock area and around New England. She studied with Richard Sanders at ConVal High School, with William Wrzesien, and at UMass with Michael Sussmann and David Martins. She has performed with Valley Light Opera and Raylynmor Opera. Currently she enjoys playing with the Keene Chamber Orchestra, Windham Philharmonic, and Fireside Winds.
DAVID MILLER, horn, studied at the Navy School of Music and Keene State College. He played in the Army Band and has performed with the Keene Chamber Orchestra, Keene Chorale, Monadnock Chorus, Lions Club Productions, Raylynmor Opera, Windham Philharmonic, and other area musical organizations.
NATHANIEL BRIDGES, bassoon, is a New Hampshire native and recent KSC graduate in music composition. He plays clarinet and saxophone as well as bassoon, and has performed with the Keene Chamber Orchestra and Keene Jazz Orchestra.
Wind Quintet, with its uniquely varied array of instruments, is a long-established chamber music combination with roots in the late 18th century. Distinguished composers since then have written music for it. Today there are many permanently established quintets (though not so much in this region). The Aquilonian Winds hope to present a wide variety of both older and contemporary compositions in local performances.
Wind Quintet in A-flat Major Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Allegro moderato (un poco rubato)
Adagio
Minuet (in canon)
Air and variations
INTERMISSION
Our Town: Three Excerpts from the Film Score Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
The Story of Our Town
Conversation at the Soda Fountain
The Resting-place on the Hill
They Can’t Take That Away From Me George Gershwin (1898-1937) Ira Gershwin (1896-1983)
Love Potion #9 Jerry Leiber (1933-2011) Mike Stoller (b. 1933)
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PROGRAM NOTES
FIVE PASTORALES
by Charles Koechlin
Opus 77 #3, 4, 5, 6, and 9
Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) was an enormously prolific French composer. His best-known works are several orchestral tone poems based on Kipling’s Jungle Book, and the Seven Stars Symphony (a tribute to such Hollywood movie stars of the silent era as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Greta Garbo, and Mary Pickford). He orchestrated Fauré’s suite Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s ballet Khamma, and Cole Porter’s ballet Within the Quota. His musical idiom is hard to describe: a blend of impressionism, neoclassicism, and modernist techniques, all of it sounding distinctively French.
Opus 77 (from a catalogue of well over 200 works) is a group of twelve Pastorales for piano. Most are very short; these are some of the shortest. There’s an endearing modesty, a lack of pretentiousness, about these pieces, as well as many others by Koechlin. They aim to please, not impress. That does not imply lack of craft; Koechlin was skillful and sophisticated (which is why such heavy hitters as Debussy and Porter sought his services). His contrapuntal writing is especially noteworthy; Pastorales V and VI, brief as they are, make good examples.
UKRAINE
Three Works by Ukrainian Composers
Viktor Kosenko: Prélude (Op. 2)
Reinhold Glière: Scherzo (Op. 34 No. 14)
Mykola Lysenko: Élégie (Op. 41 No. 3)
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has focused the world’s attention on that beleaguered nation. For musicians and music lovers generally it has spurred an interest in Ukrainian composers, most of whom are little known beyond its borders.
What makes a composer Ukrainian? Place of birth? Upbringing? Musical training? Residency? Use of Ukrainian folk materials? The matter is complicated by the centuries-long relationship — cultural, political, geographical — between Ukraine and Russia. The careers of these three composers are cases in point.
Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938) was born in Saint Petersburg. He showed early talent in music and developed into a virtuoso pianist. In 1898 his family moved to Warsaw. At the start of World War I they moved back to Saint Petersburg, where he entered the Conservatory. After graduation in 1918 he moved to the Ukrainian town of Zhytomyr, where his family had resettled, and became director of its music school. His decade there was fruitful; he composed prolifically, fell in love, got married, and began his solo piano career. He became active in contemporary music circles in Moscow (this was in the early heady days of the Revolution) and toured as a recitalist and chamber musician throughout the USSR, giving over a hundred free concerts in Ukraine. His programs there included works by Ukrainian composers. When Stalin came to power, “creative conflicts” with the regime prompted Kosenko to move to Kyiv, where he taught first at the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and later at the Kyiv Conservatory. He eventually re-established himself in Soviet music circles, composed works in orthodox Socialist Realist style, and arranged Ukrainian and Soviet folk songs (the latter seems oxymoronic) for publication. He lived most of his life in Zhytomyr, largely impoverished like the rest of the populace under Soviet incompetence. The government forced him to share his house with other families. He opened it to homeless people and gave them food and money. Finally he was granted an apartment in Kyiv and honored for his services to Ukrainian music with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, presented by the top Communist official in Ukraine, Nikita Khrushchev.
Kosenko’s music is in the tradition of late Russian Romanticism. There are about 250 compositions, of which more than 100 are for piano; the rest include chamber, orchestra, and choral works. An admired teacher, he wrote lots of music for children to study and play. By most standards he was successful in all his several careers. Much good did it do him. His health ruined, he died at age 42. This brief somber prelude is an early work.
Reinhold Glière (1875-1956) is the only one of these three composers with an international reputation. He was born in Kyiv, studied at its music school, and then attended Moscow Conservatory, where his starry array of teachers included Taneyev, Ippolitov-Ivanov, and Arensky. He started on a teaching career; one of his students was 11-year-old Sergei Prokofiev. In 1913 he became director of the Kyiv Conservatory, where he taught Vladimir Dukelsky, better known to Americans as Broadway composer Vernon Duke. His own first big hit, the ballet The Red Poppy (1927), was “the first Soviet ballet on a revolutionary subject.” Russian Sailors Dance is a favorite on pops concerts. Music from two other ballets, The Comedians and The Bronze Horseman, also became popular. His vast 3rd Symphony, the programmatic Ilya Murometz, is regarded by some as his masterpiece. A generation older than Kosenko, he made the transition smoothly from Tsarist to Soviet Russia and never got into trouble with the authorities for embracing “bourgeois formalism.” Instead they piled honors on him.
Glière was prolific. Like Kosenko, he wrote much music for children. This Scherzo is from such a collection, titled for Western consumption 24 Pièces Caractéristiques pour la Jeunesse, Op. 34. Characteristic perhaps, but not in its 5/4 time signature. The structure is ABA, with a slower legato middle section sandwiched between the rapid staccato ones, the last an abbreviated version of the first.
Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912) is considered the “father of Ukrainian music.” He drew on Ukrainian folk sources, promoted the Ukrainian language, and set texts by Ukrainian writers. His 1885 choral setting of a patriotic poem became known internationally as Prayer for Ukraine. Coming from a wealthy cultured family, he began music studies early. He attended high school in Kharkiv and university in Kyiv, and later studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Carl Reinicke. Returning to Kyiv, he began composing in earnest. From 1874 to 1876 he studied orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov in Saint Petersburg. After that he settled permanently in Kyiv. To an even greater extent than Kosenko and Glière he was a Ukrainian ethnomusicologist; like them, he was prolific in all the traditional genres.
From Wikipedia:
By the late 1870s, Lysenko was recognized as a leading figure in Ukrainian music. As a Ukrainian composer living in a Russian-controlled state he endured continued difficulties from the government. His relationship with the RMS gradually deteriorated, until he was completely ignored. Unlike his Russian colleagues, Lysenko received no state support, and sometimes active resistance from Russian officials. He was repeatedly monitored by the government and often attacked in the local press, because his activities in support of Ukrainian culture made him suspicious to the political officials – in particular his frequent meetings with other Ukrainian patriots, and later, his support of the 1905 revolution and heading of the Ukrainian Club.He was jailed for his stance on the revolution in 1907.
The Ems Ukaz decree of 1876 that banned use of the Ukrainian language in print was one of the obstacles for Lysenko; he had to publish some of his scores abroad, while performances of his music had to be authorized by the imperial censor. For his opera libretti Lysenko insisted on using only Ukrainian. He was so intent on promoting and elevating the Ukrainian culture that he didn’t allow his opera Taras Bulba to be translated – he maintained that it was too ambitious to be staged in Ukrainian opera houses. Tchaikovsky was impressed by the opera and wanted to stage the work in Moscow. Lysenko’s insistence on it being performed in Ukrainian, not Russian, prevented the performance from taking place in Moscow.
What makes a composer Ukrainian? Three composers, three answers.
WIND QUINTET IN A-FLAT MAJOR
by Gustav Holst
I. Allegro moderato (un poco rubato)II. Adagio III. Minuet (in canon)IV. Air and variations
The 1903 Wind Quintet is a fluent and tuneful piece from what his daughter called his “long and painful” apprenticeship. The origins of this work are surrounded in mystery, as is its survival. For many years the whereabouts of the manuscript was unknown but in 1978 it surfaced in the Surrey History Centre. The work was first published in 1983 but in a truncated version; 44 bars were cut from the first movement and 32 from the second.
From the Boosey & Hawkes website
Gustav Holst is best known for his monumental orchestral suite The Planets, but in many ways that work is not representative. In fact, hardly any of his works could be called representative, because his styles and interests were so diverse. Commentators note the influence of Brahms in the first two movements of the Wind Quintet, of baroque counterpoint in the ingenious canon-minuet and its whirlwind trio, and of English folksong in the theme and variations finale.
Many of those commentators condescend to the work as “lightweight,” partly because it comes so early in the composer’s career. Those first two movements, however, are certainly substantial, and there’s nothing wrong with lightness in a minuet or finale; just ask, say, Mozart or Haydn, to pick a couple of names at random. Holst’s Quintet is not only a rare find, but a significant addition to the wind repertory.
A more recent edition than the 1983 one restores the cuts described on the B&H website, but most performances, including this one, use the edited version.
OUR TOWN
Three Excerpts from the Film Score
by Aaron Copland
The Story of Our Town Conversation at the Soda FountainThe Resting-place on the Hill
1. The Music
“For the film version, they were counting on the music to translate the transcendental aspects of the story. I tried for clean and clear sounds and in general used straight-forward harmonies and rhythms that would project the serenity and sense of security of the story.” — Aaron Copland
In Copland’s own piano version of these three excerpts, there’s practically nothing on the page: brief motto tunes based on scales and triads, common chords standing in ranks like soldiers, lots of half- and whole-notes (wind players call them “footballs”), not much else.
The lovely tune in the Resting-place excerpt is a Gymnopedie, a term coined by the eccentric French composer Erik Satie for the three brief piano pieces by which he is best known. You’ve heard them. It’s a slow waltz with a long-breathed melody; the accompaniment is a bass note on the downbeat of each bar, and a right-hand chord on the second beat, held through the third.
The typical film score in the “golden age” of the Hollywood studios was BIG: very full orchestra, hyper-romantic, colorful, noisy, Viennese-y. Think Max Steiner or Erich Korngold (and their pre-eminent modern successor, John Williams). Wonderful stuff. But not for Copland, trained in France by the fastidious Nadia Boulanger, the 20th century’s greatest teacher of musical composition. He wrote only a few scores for feature films, but they were “prestige” projects including The Heiress (based on Henry James), Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony (both by John Steinbeck), and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
2. The Composer
Copland was the most successful American “classical” composer of the last century. He mastered all the standard forms: keyboard, chamber, orchestral, choral, dance, song, and opera. Early in his career he experimented with jazz and “avant-garde” idioms, but as the Great Depression descended on the United States he felt the need to speak more directly to American audiences (to be, in today’s unfortunate term, more “accessible”) by simplifying his style and incorporating various folk traditions: cowboy songs, Southern folk songs, New England hymns. For the score he wrote to Martha Graham’s ballet Appalachian Spring he unearthed the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, which owes its enduring popularity to him. He is often credited with inventing the “American Sound” in classical music.
So in 1940 he was a logical choice to compose the music for the film of Our Town, that most quintessentially American of plays, celebrating the simple verities of small-town life. Wilder wrote the play at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, which he took as the model for his fictional Grovers Corners. Copland had also worked at MacDowell, and shared Wilder’s artistic values. It’s hard to imagine music better matched to its subject.
THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME
by George Gershwin
Composer George Gershwin and his lyricist brother Ira need no introduction.
They Can’t Take That Away From Me was written in 1937, the last year of George’s life, for the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie Shall We Dance. It appears in a sequence where the two characters, who were forced to marry as part of a publicity stunt and then fell in love with each other before further complications ensue, are about to part. Astaire and Rogers each said later in life that the song was one of their favorites.
This arrangement includes the “verse” (a traditional introductory section) before the “chorus” (the familiar tune). Such verses were usually text-driven and melodically undistinguished. Not Gershwin’s.
Our romance won't end on a sorrowful note,
Though by tomorrow you're gone;
The song is ended, but as the songwriter wrote,
The melody lingers on.
They may take you from me I'll miss your fond caress.
But thought they take you from me, I'll still possess ...
The way you wear your hat,
They way you sip your tea,
The memory of all that,
No, no, they can't take that away from me.
The way your smile just beams,
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams,
No no, they can't take that away from me.
We may never, never meet again,
On the bumpy road to love.
Still I'll always, always keep the memory of ...
The way you hold your knife,
The way we danced till three,
The way you changed my life,
No, no, they can't take that away from me,
No, they can't take that away from me.
LOVE POTION #9
by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Love Potion #9 was recorded in 1959 by a nearly forgotten male quintet, The Clovers, and later “covered” by better-known artists. It’s comical, but in a minor key. Originally a doo-wop rocker, here it’s treated as a slow blues, which perhaps better reveals its melodic and harmonic distinction. The song was used on the soundtrack of several hit movies and even engendered one (so titled) which incorporates details from the lyrics and expands on the story.
I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth,
You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth,
She's got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine,
Sellin' little bottles of Love Potion Number Nine.
I told her that I was a flop with chicks,
I've been this way since 1956.
She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign,
She said, “What you need is Love Potion Number Nine.”
She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink,
She said, “I'm gonna make it up right here in the sink.”
It smelled like turpentine, it looked like India ink,
I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink.
I didn't know if it was day or night,
I started kissin' everything in sight,
But when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine,
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine.
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SATURDAY, JUNE 17
WENDY KEITH and FRIENDS
“What a voice! Hubba Hubba!” This accolade for Wendy Keith was spoken by touring singer-songwriter Vance Gilbert. Another musician, the tough and tender voiced troubadour Greg Brown, says Wendy “sounds like an angel.” And indeed, there is such a rich quality to her singing, at once lyrical and plummy, something elemental and basic like when you know the marinara is perfect or the freshly sanded walnut burl tabletop is ready for linseed oil.
Here’s her official resume: Wendy Keith is a singer songwriter who has been playing guitar in the Monadnock Region for many years at venues including The Folkway, The Colonial Theatre and Peterborough Players. She has recorded four LPs and the most recent, It’s About Time was released to a sell-out crowd early in 2020. Wendy is a two-time ASCAP award winning songwriter.
But a resume is simply the sum of all the parts; the shiny lacquer over the solid foundation of her total output of music. And this, whether interpreted, reinterpreted, or most essential of all — her own story — feels like … home.
And home is what you feel when you listen to her music.
A tune like “Ain’t Nobody’s Fault But My Own,” originally recorded in 1927 by Blind Willie Johnson and since covered by scads of musicians from Doc Watson to Jerry Garcia, becomes in Wendy’s hands a soulful anthem of regret and self-reckoning that cries The Blues.
Or as when she considers the messy joys of familial interconnectedness in one of her early tunes “Junque Drawer;” a song about that catch-all repository of all the odds and ends, tchotchke and detritus of one’s life that you can’t live without. A place where you search for bits and pieces of who you are, your identity in minutiae. Just like family, right?
And from her most recent album, It’s About Time, released in 2020 just before the pandemic, “The Heart is Not a Bone” is the kind of nuanced, mature piece that can come about only after suffering some bruising and buffing in life. The heart is the soft, beating center of your being, the most centered part of self, the home base of our existence.
In her NHPR interview of November 2022, Ms. Keith spoke of one song that particularly resonates with her: “Stuff that Works” by Guy Clark. She said:
“It just really boils down to what works, what doesn’t work. Don’t waste time on what doesn’t work, focus on the stuff that does. You know, ‘the stuff you reach out for when you fall.’”
In quoting the lyrics, she may have been giving an eloquent plug for Clark’s song, but she is apparently speaking her own truth for who she is as a person and an artist now.
Ms. Keith has also assembled a new group of players and wrote to introduce them to us:
Stephanie Hurley is a versatile vocalist in many genres of music. She has sung since childhood in choruses and choirs performing a cappella, musical theater, jazz and swing, pop, folk, and classical music. She holds degrees in Vocal Performance and Music History. Most recently, she has performed with the Bedford Big Band, singing swing music from the Great American Songbook.
Bob Bolt has been playing bass since 1970, when he joined a Sha-na-na tribute band called “Grease.” He went to play in several years in rock bands near Boston. In 1978, he met Stephanie Hurley, who changed his musical direction to jazz standards. Bob & Steph formed various bands that performed a variety of popular music, including disco.
More recently, he’s played covers and original music in Monadnock regional bands: Ivy LeVine and Chum, Bare Bones, the Slyders, and Dragon Bone Jam. He recently expanded his instrumental range to include a Ned Steinberger electric upright bass. His bass heroes include James Jamerson, John Entwhistle, and Paul McCartney.
Jonas Taub is a guitarist and singer with over 50 years of solo and ensemble performing and recording experience. His guitar mastery and singing repertoire encompass styles ranging from bluegrass to blues, jazz, folk and more. A harmony singer since childhood, Jonas also enjoys adding vocal harmonies and guitar parts to enhance the song. Jonas is currently a member of the band Off The Cuff, and performs with Wendy Keith and others .
This promises to be the best of the best for the Muusic 4UU series. Their rich instrumentation and three part harmonies will grace selections of original, Americana, gospel and jazz in a diverse concert with something for everyone.
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SUNDAY, MAY 21
MILL CITY RAGS
If you’re looking for the origins of American music, you couldn’t do much better than Ragtime and Traditional Jazz. And Jimmy Otis, the leader of Mill City Rags, reports this understanding when he says
My piano teacher introduced me to Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer and I loved it. Ragtime was this strange wonderful music-a fusion of European and African American elements.
Jimmy is a musician who came to his art somewhat later than the so-called “norm” of starting young and playing through early school years. He started playing drums in his late teens and discovered the piano at age 20. It probably had been there in the parlor all along, but Jimmy was into wrestling at the time so he might not have noticed it. Either way, once he got going there was no turning back. In college he studied theory and kept taking lessons and despite being momentarily sidelined by the accordion, he stayed the course.
And it’s obvious from his skillfully accurate technique and authentic interpretation of the music, as well as his ability to tackle a variety of styles in the genre of early jazz. I’ve heard some darned good Duke Ellington along with Scott Joplin and Louis Armstrong coming from this band with Jimmy backing it all up on the keyboard.
I personally was involved with early jazz in the Boston area since the mid-80’s, and Mill City Rags is a relative newcomer to the genre — a big relief to aficionados who have been seening the graying of audiences for a couple decades. I asked him how he pulled this group together. His answer was plainspoken:
Mill City Rags began with me saying I was going to start a Ragtime band and that was it! I had played in rock bands, but wanted to swing and play this music so I just did it.
Well, that’s making a decision.
From there it was a matter of assembling the players. An important thing to know about any jazz ensemble is that this style of music, perhaps more than any other ensemble of any genre, uses printed music as a starting point and develops a sound based on improvisation. This is above and beyond the synthesis of individual instruments and personalities — that sometimes uncanny telepathy that exists among musicians. Improv requires lightning fast decisions that comes from knowing the tune, the style and cues from other musicians. Plus the secret sauce: having good musical ideas.
The players in Mill City have those elements at play: piano by Jimmy and his bassist Rick Posch with JoAnn Gerde on drums hold the whole thing together. What is called the front line with Nicole Edgecomb on trumpet and Dan Walker on trombone provide the magic, setting the mood to bring the audience directly into a roaring 20’s speakeasy for some good times.
Hearing the origins of American popular music is a balm to the ears, heart and soul. I’m so glad that it’s still going, still playing, still making some heat in a chilly world.
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SATURDAY, APRIL 22
FOLKSOUL BAND
“Laissez les bon temps rouler!”
This is a band that will have you dancing in the aisles. You might think that’s a bit sketchy for a church, but hey — this is a UU Church. “Sanctuary” means all kinds of things, and dance is one of the best ways to get in the spirit.
Folksoul Band is something of an institution around these parts. The sounds of New Orleans — Cajun, Soul, R&B — may not seem to be a great fit for chilly New Hampshire, but their sizeable following says otherwise. Don’t we all need a little heat (warmth) and heat (rhythm) now and then?
We took the initiative to ask leader Fred Simmons a few questions about his motives and wherewithal concerning Folksoul, and here’s what he said:
Folksoul is such an interesting name for a band. Can you tell us something about the music and your approach?
[Folksoul is] dance music, with a natural and organic acoustic balance that does not rely on volume to reach people’s hearts and souls. No other band sounds quite like this one, or makes music exactly like it. It is high-spirited music generated by the musicians and the instruments themselves, and it’s an interesting assortment on both counts!
So, Folk and Soul. I get it. Tell me about yourself. What is your background in music?
I have been playing music ever since college, and have played for people all over the country, from Alaska to Maine, and have learned a lot about music and people and myself in the process.
Nothing like being in front of an audience to learn to read people, right? What got you started in this style of music?
When Leslie and I first arrived in San Francisco from New York in 1976 we began playing on Fisherman’s Wharf and began a style of playing American roots music. In 2007 we began to focus especially on New Orleans musical culture, and called our new band the Folksoul Band.
What is it about this style of music that moves you? Can you put that drive into words?
My experiences have taught me that New Orleans culture, via artists like Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino, funneled through artists like Hank Williams and Elvis Presley, is the seed for a unifying American culture. We are an exponent of that unifying American culture, that expresses the marriage of African American and European American cultures.
Tell me just a little bit about your bandmates. How did you meet them and how do you interact as members of the ensemble.
Leslie Vogel and I have been married and also musical partners for all these many years since college. We have learned to play together in various forms, and we do many things with our music.
Tara Greenblatt is an extraordinarily creative musician with an expressive voice and also a great percussionist, who also has her own band as a vehicle for her great songwriting. We are happy that we can share in this mission of bringing this music into the world.
We are glad to have Ramsay Thomas joining us on stand-up bass for the last 5 years, providing us with the steady solid bass rhythm that our music requires.
What brought you to New Hampshire, and is there anything else interesting you want to say about your lives here?
We moved to NH in 1986. By then we had two children and our original band finally gave up the ghost in Anchorage AK, so we moved back east, to be closer to our children’s grandparents. We bought land in greenfield NH, cleared it and built a log house, where we still live today.
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GROVE STREET TRIO
MARCH 25, 2023
Grove Street is a trio of local Monadnock area musicians, Chaz Bealieu (flute), Eric Blackmer (guitar) and David Duhon (cello). They have just released their first CD album called THE TUNES, The Whole Tunes and nothing but the tunes- The Tunes for short. Grove Street is an unlikely group of individuals to be making such beautiful music together. Chaz was an English teacher, now a cook, Eric was a pro audio sales and studio builder (retired), and David was professional bridge player and now is an organic farmer. These disparate individuals brought together by a shared love of music have forged a strong musical bond. Chaz and Eric have been playing together locally for over 20 years in groups with various other musicians. David joined up more recently…
THE TUNES is an eclectic collection of instrumental music drawn from over 4 centuries, focusing heavily on the works of four composers, Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 1738), a blind itinerant Irish harpist who wrote hundreds of songs mostly named for patrons, Bob McQuillen (1923- 2014), a legendary local piano player and beloved shop teacher who wrote hundreds of songs, mostly named for people he knew. Then there is Tom Febonio, a living composer who happens to be an old college mate of our flutist, Chaz. Tom has a remarkable body of compositions that range from whistle tunes to full blown classical music. The fourth composer featured on the CD and in today’s concert is Jessica Walsh who compiled 2 books of Celtic Music for Flute which we have been playing from for years. Many of the songs in her books include variations which we use and they are brilliant. When we got to making the Tunes we found that we included two of her songs.
The music that Grove Street performs is a unique blend that doesn’t fit into any one genre. You might call it Celtic music, or folk but that would not tell the whole story. Grove Street likes to describe what they do as chamber music. One thing we can be sure of is that it is beautiful music.