Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 51st concert season, will present its annual Midwinter Musicale program on Saturday, February 25, at Guilford Community Church, just over a mile from Exit 1 off the Interstate. The evening will begin with a pre-concert soup supper at 6 p.m., continue at 7 p.m. with a concert featuring the HeartSoulVoice duo from Boston, and be capped by a dessert reception.
The pre-concert light supper, included in the $12 admission fee, will offer hearty homemade soups, Vermont bread and cheese, salad, and fruit. An array of desserts will be served at a post-concert reception.
The musical program will begin with original songs on themes of love, protest, and healing. Next will be a set of seasonal songs from the plays of William Shakespeare, including “Blow Blow, Thou Winter Wind” (As You Like It) and “When Icicles Hang by the Wall” (Love’s Labours Lost), as well as “The Willow Song” from Othello and tunes popular in Elizabethan times.
An improvised song, based on “love lines” contributed by audience members attending the supper, will loosely illustrate one mode employed by the duo’s harpist in her work as an expressive arts therapist. The program will end with a set of traditional and original Celtic music, including “I’ll Make My Love a Breast of Glass,” a set of Burns songs, and a lively instrumental medley.
HeartSoulVoice, founded in 2011, is comprised of Janna Maria Fröhlich on voice, harp, and piano for this performance, as well as Joy Grimes on violin/fiddle. The duo performs traditional Celtic and early music, as well as original songs, tunes, and improvisations based on pop/folk/jazz and Celtic forms, sometimes with the addition of guitar in its instrumentation.
Janna Maria Fröhlich is a practicing board-certified music therapist and mental health counselor. Janna was vocal soloist for many years at First Church UU in Jamaica Plain. She has performed with a number of Boston-area early music groups on voice and harp, including with Cappella Clausura under FOMAG auspices in 2010. Janna performed solo as part of a fundraiser for the Hope2Cope campaign in 2013, raising funds and awareness in the fight against Self-Injury. Her originals, musically influenced by folk, Celtic, jazz and early music genres, are written from a storytelling perspective on themes of love, loss, change, and growth. Janna holds a BA in Art and Music from Wheaton College, an MFA in Early Music Performance from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MA in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University.
Joy Grimes is much in demand as an early music and classical violinist/violist with numerous Boston-area groups, including the Handel & Haydn Society, Cambridge Concentus, Grand Harmony, La Donna Musicale, Ulster Landing, and Folk Baroque, among other ensembles and orchestras. She enjoys the local Celtic music session scene and is a former member of the West O’Clare traditional Irish dance band. Joy teaches Suzuki and advanced level violin and runs workshops on Baroque instrumental dance music. She earned a BA in Viola Performance and Anthropology at Southern Illinois University and both a Master’s and a Doctorate in Viola Performance at Boston University.
Guilford Community Church is at 38 Church Dr. in Guilford, off Rt. 5 via Bee Barn Rd., just after the Guilford Country Store. The building is handicap accessible.
In case Saturday’s weather is particularly inclement. a snow date of Sunday, February 26, at 3 p.m. is planned, with a teatime soup and dessert reception to follow.
For additional information, contact the Friends of Music office at (802) 254-3600 or office@fomag.org, or visit online at www.fomag.org. FOMAG’s 51st season is supported in part by media sponsors Vermont Public Radio and the Vermont Arts 2017 program of the Vermont Arts Council.