GUILFORD — As it has done for more than a half-century, Friends of Music at Guilford opens its 53rd annual music season with a concert in a rural barn on Saturday night of Labor Day Weekend.
The Organ Barn is in an idyllic setting near the state line where Guilford meets Leyden, Mass. The intimate Barn seats close to a hundred concertgoers, and on Sunday afternoon, 200 or more people flock to the lawn outside the Barn for picnicking and an orchestra concert, according to a news release.
At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 1, guest organist James Gerber, Doctor of Musical Arts, will perform solo works by Baroque masters Dieterich Buxtehude, J.S. Bach, and Johann Gottfried Walther, as well as Suite Gothique (1895) by French composer Léon Boëllman and Master Tallis's Testament (1940) by English composer Herbert Howells.
This Organ Barn performance, like others in the past, includes enlightening commentary from the stage.
Dr. Gerber, a lifelong church musician, served congregations in his home state of Wisconsin, as well as in Minnesota and Arizona, before becoming associate minister of music at Wayne Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania.
His bachelor's degree in organ performance is from the University of Wisconsin, his master's in liturgical music, with an organ emphasis, is from St. John's University, and his Doctor of Musical Arts in organ performance is from Arizona State.
At 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 2, the Guilford Festival Orchestra performs a lawn concert under the baton of conductor Kenneth Olsson. The annual pick-up orchestra's members, a mix of professional and amateur players, hail from Vermont, New Hampshire, and several Pioneer Valley towns in Massachusetts.
Leading off with excerpts from Henry Purcell's Abdelazer, or The Moor's Revenge (1695), the program continues with Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, op. 31 (1943), featuring soloists Joshua Collier, tenor, and Jean Jeffries, horn.
After intermission, offerings include five chamber pieces by Frank Bridge (1879-1941), arranged for winds, as well as two pieces for small orchestra by Frederick Delius (1862-1934), his seasonal tone poems On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Summer Night on the River.
The afternoon's traditional finale, a sing-in of Randall Thompson's Alleluia, brings members of the orchestra and audience together for this a cappella work. Attendees are asked to bring the music if they own a copy to share, or they can borrow one from FOMAG's collection.
Kenneth Olsson, conductor, earned a bachelor's degree in vocal performance from Ithaca College. He has appeared in many operatic leading roles in the Northeast and has served as artistic or music director, conductor, and rehearsal pianist for a variety of opera and musical theater production companies.
American tenor Joshua Collier, praised for his “thrilling high range” and “passionate commitment to character,” was hailed as “a great Italian tenor on the make” by Boston's Classical Scene in his June 2016 role debut as Roméo in Roméo et Juliette.
A graduate of The New England Conservatory with Master of Music in vocal performance, he has appeared throughout New England and beyond in operatic roles from Rodolfo in La Bohème, Macduff in Macbeth, and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance to B. F. Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly.
Jean Jeffries, a graduate of Harvard College, teaches horn and chamber music at three of the Five Colleges in the Pioneer Valley. She lectures and performs throughout New England on modern, natural, and baroque horn.
Her interest in promoting and performing contemporary music has resulted in several commissions, the most recent being a setting of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, The Fish, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lewis Spratlan, and The Rusalka for horn and piano by Clifton J. Noble.
Grounds open at noon on Sunday for picnicking and lunch sales. A hearty vegetarian meal of assorted salads, eggs, Grafton cheddar cheese, Walker Farm tomatoes, Vermont-made artisan bread, a drink, and Scott Farm apples, is offered for $10 per person; lemonade and warm chocolate chip cookies are also available at intermission.
Children are welcome, with parental supervision, but dogs are asked to stay at home.
Both Labor Day Weekend concerts are free, with generous donations encouraged to defray the considerable cost of this musical weekend in the country. Follow signs for 9 miles from the Guilford Country Store, on Rt. 5 just south of Exit 1, to the Organ Barn off Packer Corners Rd. The Saturday concert in the Barn is rain or shine.
In case of threatening weather on Sunday, the lunch and lawn concert will move to West Village Meeting House, the home of All Souls Church UU, at 29 South St., just over a mile west of Exit 2 off I-91 in West Brattleboro, across the road from the fire station; check the FOMAG website at www.fomag.org and their Facebook page, as well as local radio stations, for any change of venue.