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Aboca Beads and Jewelry, p. 47
Ames True Value Hardware, p. 30
Calm ’n Sense Animal Care, p. 4
Camden National Bank, inside front cover
Cheney Financial Group, p. 2
Citizen Maine Home, p. 46
Coach House on Dutch Neck, p. 4
Damariscotta Chiropractic Health Center, p. 42
Damariscotta Montessori School, inside back cover
Direction Woodworks, p. 44
Damariscotta-Newcastle Lions Club, p. 42
First National Wealth Management, p. 26
Granite Hall Store, p. 24
HM Payson, p. 1
Lincoln County News, p. 12
Lincoln Theater, p. 6
Lind Building and Renovation, p. 44
Lynch & Newman, LLC, p. 34
Main Street Grocery, p. 38
Mia’s Shear Perfection, p. 2
Midcoast Blooms, p. 47
Midcoast Energy Systems, p. 48
Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, p. 42
Moody’s Diner, p. 24
Mook Sea Farm, p. 43
Now You’re Cooking, p. 44
Ocean Blue Pilates, p. 20
Preston Music Studio, p. 4
Rising Tide Co-Op, p. 10
River Escape, p. 22
Riverside Butcher, p. 8
Round Pound Coffee, p. 47
S. Fernald’s Country Store, p. 8
Salt Bay Framers, p. 22
Schooner Cove & St. Andrews Village, p. 35
Sheepscot Valley Chorus, p. 43
Shelley’s Flowers, p. 22
Skidompha Secondhand Bookshop, p. 30
Sproul’s Furniture, p. 40
St. Cecilia Chamber Choir, p. 38
St. Patrick’s Church Choir, p. 22
Stepping Stone Housing, p. 36
Strong-Hancock Funeral Home, p. 46
Supplies Unlimited, p. 6
The Lincoln Home, p. 16
The Patriotic Club of Bremen, p. 24
The Beach Plum Company, p. 40
Tidewater Telecom, back cover
Wallace Piano Service, p. 28
West Neck Strategies, p. 2
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Our Sponsors
Tapestry Singers gratefully acknowledges the contributions from the following:
Instrumentalist Sponsor
Cathy and Hayden Sears
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Patron
Anonymous
Anonymous
In memory of Ernestine
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In memory of Hester K. Stuhlman, Bill Bausch, and Don Osier
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In memory of Sandy Falconer
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Sponsor
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Denison W. Briggs
Meg Browne
Ann Creamer
Ian and Lynn Drewette
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Tapestry Singers Student Award 2024
Kayla Cruz has been a member of Tapestry Singers for three years and has sung multiple solos with Tapestry Singers. At Lincoln Academy Kayla has been an active participant in the performing arts, singing with the Lincolnaires, acting and performing musical roles in the theater program, and this year playing the leading role in Lincoln Academy’s film project “Gettin Along.” She has been selected multiple times to Maine’s District 3 Honors Choir and Maine All-State Choir. In addition, this year she was selected to participate in the American Choral Director’s Association’s East Honors Choir in Providence, Rhode Island. Kayla has studied privately with Beth Preston. In addition to her roles in the performing arts she has also won awards for her visual artwork. Academically Kayla was President of Lincoln Academy’s chapter of the National Honor Society and was salutatorian of the class of 2024. This fall Kayla will be attending Lehigh University where she plans on majoring in architecture and possibly minoring in music.
Tapestry Singers
Soprano
Linda Blomquist
Germaine Connolly
Sarah Duggan
Hildy Ellis
Judy Grey
Violet Holbrook
Sarah Loud
Pam Meier
Jessica Picard
Kim Relick
Patricia Row
Ann Springhorn
Janet Thatcher
Alto
Rosie Bensen
Taylor Briggs
Laurie Brown
Barrie Brusila
April Burke
Barbara Cray
Karen Haney
Kayla Cruz
Kaylee Dodge
Anne Frost
Jaja Martin
Sue McLeod
Rachael Schuster
Sarah Tomasello
Tenor
Benjamin Agosto Matos
Mal Briggs
Chris Frost
Niall Lessard
Zora Margolis
Hayden Sears
John Strong
Jason Thatcher
Bass
Fred Bowers
Gordon Clark
Randy Cruz
Ivan DeGroote
Justin French
Franklin Holland
Gordon Lind
Skip Simonds
Marcel Young-Scaggs
Music Director
Beth Preston holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master's Degree in Vocal Pedagogy. She is a member of the Voice Care Network, National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). She has directed choirs and coached singers for musical theater productions since 1982. In her role as Music Director for Tapestry Singers she has become known for championing the works of living composers. She directed Tapestry during 1998-2006 and then returned to the group in 2014. She was a founding member of the critically acclaimed, Brunswick-based Una Voce Chamber Choir (formerly Vox Nova Chamber Choir). She was a member of the chorus of Opera Maine in productions of La Bohème, Lucia di Lammermoor, Faust, Roméo et Juliette, and part of a small women’s choir that performed with Midcoast Symphony Orchestra for Debussy’s Nuages and Holst’s The Planets. She was awarded “Distinguished Choral Director of the Year 2010” by Maine American Choral Directors Association, “Music Educator of the Year 2013” by Maine Music Educators District 3, and “Maine Music Educator of the Year 2019” by Maine Music Educators Association. In June 2019 Preston retired from a 37-year career in the public schools where she conducted award-winning choirs and directed musical theater productions of the highest caliber. She has coached singers who have won awards, scholarships, and acceptance into prestigious postsecondary programs. Currently, she teaches privately in her Nobleboro, Maine, studio where she enjoys working with voices at all levels of development, pre-teens through 80-somethings.
Special Thanks
Pastor Marilee Harris and the folks at Damariscotta Baptist Church
Volunteers who set up and tear down for rehearsals and concerts
Advertising volunteers
Concert front-of-house volunteers
Notes from the Director
Tapestry Singers had planned a musical tribute to the Maine Bicentennial. Rehearsals began in January 2020 and then the pandemic shut everything down. We did our best to hold the group together by attempting to record some of the music and present it on line. That process was harder than the YouTubers made it look. The singers were open to working on their own at home. The silver lining was that more of us became more technically savvy. So……this is our Belated Celebration of Maine’s Bicentennial with nods to Maine’s many cultural roots.
The program includes folk songs of the woods and the waterfront, Algonquin and Penobscot water songs, and arrangements of Shaker tunes. The first hymn is by the so-called "Yankee Tunesmith,” Supply Belcher, also known as “the Handel of Maine.” When approaching French language songs, we wondered if we should sing in Québécois, standard French diction for singers, or just do the best we can. We hope our audience is kind to us as we “do the best we can”!
There are also classical choral pieces. Three of them are based on the works of some of Maine’s most prolific poets: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edna St. Vicent Millay, and Philip Booth. We are particularly pleased to perform new pieces by Maine composers Matt LaBerge and Stuart Gillespie. I first heard “Guiding Light” sung by the Maine All State Festival Choir under the direction of Bob Russell. My students loved it and so do the Tapestry Singers. “Mary’s Dream” is a beautiful ballad that Julia Lane of Castlebay shared with Gillespie a while back. He graciously revisited his arrangement and tailored it to our needs.
Much research has gone into collecting, culling, and assembling this program. There are hours and hours of other music and poetry out there that we could have included. There are cultures that are underrepresented. This concert only skims the surface of the available repertoire. I am very grateful to Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee for their enthusiastic and insightful contributions to this program. I am also indebted to one of my research partners, Jim Birkett, for email blasts of interesting Maine musical and cultural trivia. We hope you will get curious.
Program
Audience is kindly requested to turn off cell phones. There will be no intermission.
Featured Performers:
Fred Gosbee, Julia Lane, Nanette Fraser, Sean Fleming, and Dave Martin
An Anthem of Praise Supply Belcher (1751-1836)
Shaker Songs Arranged by Kevin Siegfried (b. 1969) I Will Bow and Be Simple Vum Vive Vum
When the Taters Are All Dug Maine Folk Song
Youpe! Youpe! Sur la Rivière! French Canadian Folk Song
The Lad, John Strong; His Girl, Laurie Brown; The Father, Gordon Clark; The Sidekick, Niall Lessard
J’entends le Moulin Arranged by Donald Patriquin (b. 1938)
Lewiston Factory Girl Maine Folk Song
Solos: Rachael Schuster, Sarah Loud, Barbara Cray
The Jam on Jerry's Rocks Lumberwoods Ballad
Solos: Skip Simonds, Hayden Sears, Franklin Holland, Niall Lessard
Haul Away, Joe Traditional Sea Shanty
The Dead Ship of Harpswell Charles M. Skinner (1852-1907)
The Phantom Ship Maine Folk Song
Castlebay
Hieland Laddie Arranged by Vancouver Folk Song Society Shanty Crew
The Broom O' the Cowdenknowes Scottish Ballad
Solo: Violet Holbrook
Mary's Dream Arranged by Stuart P. Gillespie (b. 1943)
Vigil Charles Wilbert Snow (1884-1977)
The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls Sally Lamb McCune (b. 1966)
Algonquin and Penobscot Water Songs Jaguar Bird/Gabriel Paul
Solo: Elizabeth Casad Reader: Rachael Schuster
Crossing Philip Booth (1925-2007)
Crossing Sally Lamb McCune (b. 1966)
Guiding Light Matthew LaBerge (b. 1994)
Afternoon on a Hill Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Afternoon on a Hill Eric Barnum (b. 1979)
Special arrangements and transcriptions: Jenny Brown and Sean Fleming
S h a r e laughter & companionship.
C o n n e c t with culture & community.
E n g a g e intellectually, actively & creatively. D i n e on locally sourced innovative cuisine.
E x p e r i e n c e nature & the outdoors.
R e l a x knowing all your needs will be met.
Accompanist
Sean Fleming is an in-demand keyboard artist, accompanist, and arranger. He performs regularly with the Bowdoin Chorus, Down East Singers, Lincoln Academy Lincolnaires, Lincoln Festival Chorus, Midcoast Community Chorus, St. Cecilia Chamber Choir, Sheepscot Valley Chorus, and Tapestry Singers. He performs regularly with his two bands, the Sean Fleming Ragtime Band, and the Sean Fleming Dixieland Band. He is on the roster of the Amethyst Chamber Ensemble, and is a member of the Maine Friends of Music chamber ensemble. He is a member of the newly-formed professional vocal ensemble, Butterscotch Sock Hop. He was recently the music director for the Hearts Ever Young troupe. He regularly accompanies many high school and junior high festivals. He has worked with Ann Arbor Camerata, Bowdoin Chamber Choir, Bowdoin Summer Music Festival Chorus, Coastal Chorale, Colby College Chorale, Maine Pro Musica, Oratorio Chorale, Renaissance Voices, University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society, University of Southern Maine Chorale, University of Southern Maine Chamber Singers, and Vox Nova Chamber Choir.
Sean Fleming has directed or accompanied over eighty musical theater productions nationwide. He has served as the music director, orchestra conductor, and accompanist for Heartwood Regional Theater Company‘s productions of Big River, Into the Woods, Man of La Mancha, The Secret Garden, and many others. With the Watts Hall Community Players he was the music director for Once Upon a Mattress, The Pirates of Penzance, The Music Man, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the premiere of the new musical Count Me In!, and most recently H.M.S. Pinafore.
A piano and organ recitalist who has performed throughout the United States, Mr. Fleming studied organ and piano with Ray Cornils, John Doney, Michael Lindsey, and Gerald McGee. For the past twentynine years he has served as organist at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Newcastle. Over his long career he has played for Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Congregational, Methodist, and Baptist services.
He was the recipient of a 2009 St. Botolph Club Foundation grant award.
Guest Artists
Since 1984, Castlebay has created a body of work which celebrates Maine’s maritime heritage and environment blending history, legend, and experience into their personable performance style. Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee support their fine, expressive vocals with Celtic harp, guitar, fiddle, and woodwinds treating the audience to a musical journey through time and across the Atlantic.
Julia Lane's ancestors have lived in Maine since the 1600s, engaged in the traditional fishing, shipping, and lumbering industries for generations. Fred Gosbee's family were lumbermen, coming to Maine from the Maritime Provinces in 1922. For over thirty years, Lane & Gosbee have been researching their own heritage through music by exploring the traditional music connections between the Celtic lands, the Canadian Maritimes, and Maine. These regions share in the richness of this heritage as revealed by the many variations of ancient songs, tunes and stories carried by families moving through the area by land and sea as well as new vernacular creations made in the old style. Lane and Gosbee research archives and collections, and interpret this music through the lens of their own Anglo-Celtic cultural legacy.
Castlebay has recently published Bygone Ballads of Maine, Vol. 1, “Songs of Ships & Sailors,” available through Loomis House Press at local bookstores or from Castlebay. It is a compilation of 165 folk songs gathered from collections made here in Maine between 1900 and 1950. Having explored various international archives, museums, and libraries, they have distilled and repaired their findings and present them in an entertaining lecture with musical examples.
In concert, the duo presents these musical stories of romance, ramblers, and rogues woven with history and humor. Castlebay’s wide knowledge and deep cultural roots, their vocal and instrumental skills, and their personable performance style have been appreciated in museums, libraries, schools, arts centers, and festivals internationally. Castlebay has released over two dozen recordings, and their music has been used for video soundtracks and theatrical productions. For more information please visit www.castlebay.net.
Guest Artists
Dave Martin has been a boat builder, sailor, woodworker, and guitar player on Maine's midcoast for over 20 years. He manages to build at least one guitar a year for his own amusement. He also enjoys the challenge of repairing beloved, but majorly dilapidated acoustic instruments that find their way into his shop. For many years Dave has had the pleasure to play guitar with the Tapestry Singers. He has also played in pit bands for productions such as Bright Star, Big River, Man of La Mancha, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Nanette Fraser holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign. She has performed on stage and screen across the country, including Maine, Los Angeles, and her hometown, Chicago. Some of her favorite credits include Talley’s Folly, Pride & Prejudice, Life Is a Dream, and The Chalk Garden (Heartwood Theater); Steel Magnolias, Crimes of the Heart, and Halfway Twelfth Night (First Folio Theatre); The Lion in Winter Born Yesterday (KCPA.) You may have seen her in recent commercials for News Center Maine, Mowi Salmon, Action for Animals, and Maine Credit Union. Nanette will play Kate in Heartwood Regional Theater Company’s production of Dancing at Lughnasa June 20-29. A resident of Damariscotta with her husband and two daughters, Nanette also runs Vantage Consulting & Creative.
Maine Composers
Stuart Gillespie retired as a professor emeritus from a 30-year career as Director of Choral Ensembles and chair of Fine Arts at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Connecticut. He began his career in music as a baritone singer with the United States 7th Army Chorus – Europe. He was the choral master of the Manchester Symphony Chorale from 1972 to 1984 and a singer of historical sea music at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. In 1998 he received the American Choral Director Association’s “Outstanding Choral Director of Connecticut” award. In 1999 he received the “Connecticut Educational Excellence and Distinguished Service Award for Community Colleges”. He is a published composer, and, when not messing around with old boats, old cars, or old music, he takes delight in teaching the 50 voice Midcoast Senior College Singers.
Matt LaBerge is a composer/lyricist, singer/actor, music director, and educator born and raised in South Portland, Maine. Over the course of his career, Matt has worked with and had his music performed by a multitude of artists across the United States and internationally. His choral compositions and arrangements have been performed by professional choruses, school and university ensembles, community choirs, and at the Maine All-State Music Festival. His instrumental compositions and arrangements have been performed on a similar scale, including at the Palomar Film Music Workshop and by the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Equally at home in the world of musical theater, Matt’s original songs have been performed regularly in his home state of Maine by artists ranging from K-12 students to Broadway actors, and his musical arrangements have been heard all across the United States in the national tour of A Christmas Carol, produced by Perseverance Productions. Matt holds both a B.A. in Music and a B.M in Music Education from the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine.
About the Music
Supply Belcher (March 29, 1751 – June 9, 1836)
Belcher was an American composer, singer, and compiler of tune books. He was one of the so-called Yankee tunesmiths or First New England School, a group of mostly self-taught composers who created sacred vocal music for local choirs. He was active first in Lexington, Massachusetts, then eventually moved to Farmington, Maine. Like most of his colleagues, Belcher could not make music his main occupation and worked as tax assessor, schoolmaster, town clerk, and so on. Nevertheless he was considerably well known for his musical activities and even dubbed “the Handel of Maine” by a local newspaper. Most of his works survive in The Harmony of Maine, a collection Belcher published himself in Boston in 1794.
Shaker Tunes
“Who Will Bow and Bend Like a Willow (I Will Bow and Be Simple)” can be found on the 1966 Rounder Records recording of Sister R. Mildred Barker with supporting vocals by Sisters Ethel Peacock, Elsie McCool, Della Haskell, Marie Burgess, Frances Carr, and additional performers from the Shaker Society, Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Recorded at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, New Gloucester, Maine, the full album is available on YouTube and Spotify. There was no harmonizing and no instruments. These are simple verses that are sung in unison, inspired by Shaker themes of humility, faith, work, and the beauty of nature. “Vum Vive Vum” is the central movement of Angel of Light, a cantata based on Shaker themes; however, this particular movement is not sacred at all. Employing a Shaker tune with vocables, this piece takes the singer and audience on a playful rhythmic ride. The vocal sounds represent a uniquely American form of "mouth music”— a style of traditional singing where nonsense words are used to mimic the sounds of instruments or the rhythms of a dance.
Youpe! Youpe! Sur la Rivière!
Par un dimanche au soir m’en allant promener Et Youpe! Youpe! Sur la Rivière!
Chez le bonhomm’ Joe Cormier – nous avons ‘te veiller, Je vais vous raconter l'histoire qui m’est arrivée.
Youpe! Youpe! Sur la rivière!
Vous ne m’entendez guère, Youpe! Youpe! Sur la rivière!
Vous ne m’entendez pas. (continued p. 27)
Peter Nicholson
About the Music (continued)
J’y allumai ma pipe comme c'était la façon, Disant quelques paroles aux gens de la maison.
Je dis la grosse Lucille: “Me permettrez-vous De m'éloigner des autres pour s'approcher de vous?”
“Ah! Oui, vraiment,” dit-elle, “avec un grand plaisir. Tu es venu ce soir c’est seul’ment pour en rire; Tu es trop infidèle pour me parler d’amour: T’as la p’tit’ Jeremie que tu aimes toujours.”
Revenons au bonhomme, qu’est dans son lit couché, Criant à haute voix: “Lucille, va te coucher!
Les gens de la p’tite montagne, des villes et des faubourgs, Retirez-vous d’ici, car il fait bientôt jour!”
J’ n’attends pas qu’on me l’dise pour la deuxième, Et je dis à Octave: “T’en viens-tu quand et moi?
Bonsoir, ma grosse poutine, je file mon chemin!” Je m’en allais nu-tête, mon chapeau à la main.
(Poetic Translation)
’Twas on a Sunday night I went to take the air, Myself and then Octave we were a friendly pair. We made a midnight call on Joe Cormier that good man, And now I’ll tell you all the things that happened then.
Youpe! Youpe! River along! Hearing me faintly far off. Youpe! Youpe! River along! Hearing me faintly afar.
I lighted up my pipe, just as I always do, And passed the time of day to all the folks I knew. I said to [fat Lucille], “Oh will you be so kind, To step aside and hear what I have on my mind?.”
“Ah, yes, indeed!” she said, “delighted I shall be, You come this evening to make a fool of me. But you’re too fickle far to speak to me of love, You have your Jeremie, you call your little dove.”
Meanwhile the old man there is lying in his bed, And crying out aloud, “Lucille be off to bed! Now all you country folk, or city folk, I say Good night! Be gone from here, for it will soon be day!”
(continued p. 29)
About the Music (continued)
I did not wait until he spoke a second time,
And I said to Octave, “Let’s seek another clime.
Good night, my fat dumpling, the road is looking grand!”
Bareheaded I went off, my hat within my hand.
J’entends le moulin
J'entends le moulin tique tique taque
Mon père a fait bâtir maison
L'a fait bâtir à trois pignons
Sont trois charpentiers qui la font.
Le plus jeune c'est mon mignon.
Qu'apporte-tu dans ton jupon?
C'est un pâté de trois pigeons
Asseyons-nous et le mangeons.
En s'asseyant il fit un bond,
Qui fit trembler mer et poisson
Et les cailloux qui sont au fond.
I hear the mill wheel ticka-ticka tocka
My father is having a house built.
It’s being built with three gables. There are three carpenters building it.
The youngest is my darling.
What do you have in your apron?
It’s a pie made of three pigeons. Let’s sit down and eat it.
While sitting down they all lept up, Causing the sea and fish to tremble, And the stones on the bottom of the sea.
Sing the Water Song
This song was written by Irene Wawatie Jerome for Grandfather William Commanda's 2002 Circle of All Nations gathering. It is recorded with permission from the Wawatie and Commanda families and the Circle of All Nations Foundation and the Elders in Canada.
“This Algonquin Water Song expresses loving gratitude for the water and raises the consciousness and connection of women with Mother Nature’s greatest gift. The song is easy to learn, and our hope is that millions of women will sing it, raising their own connection and awareness of the water they interact with daily even in the shower or at the sink. Sing it 4 times, facing each of the 4 Directions. We believe (continued p. 31)
Support Us
Tapestry Singers is a registered non-profit 503(c) organization so donations are tax deductible. Your gifts help support the choir and make it possible for us to give an award to a graduating senior. For online donations: TapestrySingersMaine.org/ donate
Or checks may be sent to: Tapestry Singers, PO Box 666, Newcastle, ME 04553.
About the Music (continued)
this is a powerful step to change, leading to both a spiritual as well as environmental shift on our planet.”
Crossing (program notes by composer, Sally Lamb McCune)
I have always loved trains—not only for the wonderful sounds that they make, but also for the stories, poetry and music that go with them. Three texts are used in this piece: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “From a Railway Carriage” (1885), Philip Booth’s “Crossing” (1957), and an anonymous text from the African-American Spiritual “Get On Board, Little Children.”* Each offers a different perspective: one from a passenger’s viewpoint, one from an observer’s viewpoint, and another from a spiritual and philosophical perspective. I thought it would be fun to combine all three as a kind of musical crossing.
* “Get On Board” was first published in 1872 as one of the songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. In the 1950s and 1960s, participants in the Civil Rights Movement often sang the song with revised lyrics (https:// balladofamerica.org/get-on-board/). In the early 19th century, Portland had a small but vibrant African-American population. There were many leaders in Portland in the anti-slavery movement and conductors in the Underground Railroad. These people helped formerly enslaved people find freedom by traveling through Maine to get to places like Canada. One of the Portland Freedom Trail sites is the Abyssinian Meeting House (https://www.portlandlandmarks.org/ abyssinian-meeting-house).
Afternoon on a Hill (adapted from program notes by the composer, Eric Barnum) I didn’t want to focus on the pastoral sensibilities it possesses. There were a couple ideas of greater intrigue to me: transience, transformation, and nostalgia. The first words are so poignant.The poet answers the question: What would a person who is the gladdest thing under the sun act like? Well, they would touch a hundred flowers and not pick one. They would look and watch. Time to sit, time to be quiet and allow….there is no rush, no scurry and scamper. In fact, so much time passes that twilight soon descends. Something about this poem kept speaking to me of something more, something dramatic that takes place after the experience…or could take place if you allowed it. There are quite a few musical metaphors of transition of day to night in the closing bars of the piece, and I suppose on some level it leaves one with an ominous sense. Or an understanding of a greater truth.
Letter from Lead Researcher, Jim Birkett
Letter from Lead Researcher, Jim Birkett (continued)
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Get Involved
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During the 2020 pandemic isolation, we found special inspiration in the Algonquin and Penobscot Water Songs. The women of Tapestry Singers were invited to share their observations about water through poetry.
Selkie by Catherine Lyons
I am the Selkie of Irish myth
Water flows through me, around me
Supporting me, sustaining me
I am one with all sea creatures
My tears are the salty drops of Chliodhna
My heart beats to the rhythm of the waves
Emerging from the sea, I am imprinted with its essence
And my soul moves slowly through the slipstream of eternity.
Water Is Music by Rosie Bensen
Lullabies, arias, folk songs, shanties, serenades.
Hushed rush of a swollen stream. Soto voce.
Cacophonic percussion crash of a mountain cascade. Fortissimo.
We love you from earliest days, while tenderly bathed, Delighting in splashing, then swimming.
(continued p. 39)
Water Song Poetry Project (continued)
By you we are embraced. Our joy bubbles up. When life sends stress, You calm us, With mirrored lakes and crashing surf. You lull us to slumber as you lap the shore. A metaphor for our faith, you Lead us beside your still waters, And quench our souls’ thirst. May we hold you in gratitude, Restore, share, protect you. The Afterlife must be abundant in You.
Borderline
by Barbara Burt
Between what is water and what is not. Beginnings end; endings begin. We crawled from that edge yet still are filled with salted water. We spit it out with every breath but die if it’s denied us.
Water Versus Air
by Barbara Burt
(for Madeline learning to swim)
Water is not air. There are no breathing lessons while submerged. You inhaled water once, for nine long months, awash in your amniotic refuge. Now you’ll learn water again. Don't let its mystery scare you.
(continued p. 41)
Water Song Poetry Project (continued)
Water Versus Air (Continued)
Does air hold no secrets?
Remember thunder and cold that slices with invisible blades? Air cannot hold you. You cannot launch on its winds. If you fall from a ladder, air will not catch you. But, here's a promise: Water will.
The Water and the Blood
there is no telling where it starts the blood that runs the rain that spatters in narrow sliding lines spreading to channel webs along the warp and weft of skin resisting bead by bead they drop into the hand’s wrinkled bowl into rising gutter current disappearing in the cracks and open grate a torrent lacing the elemental salt in salt commingling in a stream and trailing heavy residue down hillside spill to slack water a dark ephemeral veil flat as an altar cloth having lost its body then called by the sun to a new purpose rises
begins again
Judith Grey
Published in About Place Journal, Practices of Hope, May 2020
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