Category: Events

Concerts!

Vermont Youth Opera

THIS WEEKEND! Sunday at 3pm at the Waterbury Congregational Church! The Vermont Youth Opera is under the direction of Sarah Cullins and their accompanist is Mary Jane Austin. They’ve been rehearsing in our sanctuary on Sunday afternoon all fall and are excited to return the favor, this Sunday at 3 P.M. They’ll be performing a mashup of Mozart’s Magic Flute and Rob Reiner’s (William Goldman) The Princess Bride!

Eleva Chamber Players

Elevating the human spirit through music. . .

Eleva, Central Vermont’s only professional chamber orchestra will be presenting “Suite Sounds” at the church on Saturday, November 9 at 7 p.m.

There are three major and beautiful works on the program: Carl Nielsen’s Little Suite for Strings, Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major.

For more information and to purchase tickets you may visit their website here.

CROP Hunger Walk

We’re organizing for our umpteenth CROP Hunger walk to take place on October 6. As has been our tradition, we invite local churches to walk with us and raise money with us. The slogan of the walk is, “We walk because they walk.” In other words, it’s not just about the money, but about the spirit, the solidarity, the commitment to the hungry in our community and our world. You can make a donation to this cause by finding a walker to sponsor. You can sponsor with any amount of money.

The walk begins in our church parking lot at 1 P.M. with registration just prior. Join us if you can!

Last year’s walkers heading out. . .

Music for an April Afternoon

On Sunday, April 28th at 3:00 p.m. at least 20 professional musicians will gather to present “Music for an April Afternoon.” The concert will be held at the Unitarian Church at 130 Main Street and will highlight not only Monteverdi Music School’s (MMS) talented faculty (including Joni McCraw, Mary Jane Austin and Erik Kroncke) but will also feature Counterpoint, Vermont’s professional vocal ensemble, which calls MMS at the Center for Arts and Learning its home base for rehearsals. With such a diverse representation of faculty members performing there will be something for everyone on the program.

Karen Songhurst, board president, says “This concert is key to helping fund our annual fund as well as our scholarship program. We strive to make music education accessible to everyone in the community. We hope the local community will turn out to support their local community music nonprofit’s 25 years and celebrate the immense talent in our area.” A sample of the faculty on the program include Eliza Thomas playing a Schubert piano Impromptu and Doug Perkins playing a Bach Sonata on guitar. Clarinettist Joni McCraw, pianist Luke Rackers and mezzo soprano Lindsey Warren will perform a selection from VT composer Erik Nielsen’s “Until Time Itself…” Guitarist Daniel Gaviria will play La Catedral by Agustin Barrios Mangore.

In addition to the teaching faculty, Counterpoint, directed by Nathaniel Lew, will present selections from their Six Degrees program which is an educational project and musical panorama about the threat of climate change locally and worldwide. The title Six Degrees refers both to the cataclysmic result of the warming of the planet by six degrees Celsius, which would effectively end life on our planet, as well as to the “six degrees of separation” that connect all of humanity.

This year’s faculty concert will also have a special reception in honor of the organization’s 25th anniversary and to honor Joni McCraw, who is retiring from teaching after 30 years at Monteverdi. Tickets are $20 at the door, $15 for students & seniors, and kids 10 and under are free.

Photography Reception 11/16 @ 5PM

This fall, the photography group f/7 has been sharing their large-format photographs in a show at the White Meeting House. Centered around the theme of “Grace,” each of the seven photographers contributed several images that explore this concept for them. On Friday, November 16th, Meeting House Arts is excited to host a reception with the artists from 5 to 7PM. It is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served and it’s fun for all ages.
The collective of seven photographers all hail from Central Vermont. They have been meeting for several years to talk about their work, learn from each other, and find new challenges in their photographic explorations.
“Our styles, techniques, favored subjects, and artistic philosophies vary,” explains Lisa Diamondstein, one of the group’s members.
This collection of work really offers the viewer a great sense of different approaches artists can use to portray the world around them. For example, Lisa Diamondstein and Annie Tiberio’s landscapes are panoramic and literal, while Rob Spring’s become abstracted. John Snell’s close-ups of water offer a riot of saturated color — not colorless at all, the way we usually think of water. Sandra Shenk’s mountain-scapes and Julie Parker’s botanicals both use computer processing to change the feel of their images from photographic to print-like. Elliot Burg’s highly-focused portraits pull you in to really examine the people he portrays, to try and get to know them. 
“We critique and support each other’s work, share ideas and perspectives, and seek ways to stretch our individual and collective artistic horizons,” says Ms. Diamondstein.
“We have loved having these beautiful photographs in our sanctuary,” says Pastor Peter Plagge. “It’s such a pleasure to sit with them for awhile, and then to step close and try to see more about how the photo was taken or what additional nuance it might offer.”
Anyone who likes to snap photos on their phone or their SLR will enjoy the show — and meeting the artists behind it on Friday the 16th. Please come by! The show itself will come down by Thanksgiving; in the meantime, it is open Tuesdays through Fridays, 8:30 to noon, or by appointment (244-6606).