Because of the recent snowstorm, the Council on Aging has rescheduled several events:
The Lincoln-Sudbury Music Department presents Pops Concert 2013 at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School’s Kirshner Auditorium on Wednesday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m.
The concert is free and will feature selections by the Concert Band, Symphonic Band, String Orchestra, Concert Choir, Valentines Quartets, and a grand finale including all of the music students performing together on stage. L-S Friends of Music will have snacks and beverages for sale, and donations will be accepted for the music department’s April Tour to Washington D.C.
By Brett Wittenberg
In Spanish, “loma” means rising ground in the midst of a plain. In Lincoln, LOMA means Lincoln Open Mic Acoustic, and once a month at the Lincoln Public Library, a small hill of musical talent rises.
LOMA has its origins in the annual Lincoln Winter Carnival, where residents have been demonstrating their acoustic musical skills for years. This coffeehouse-type performance has been a Lincoln favorite for the better part of a decade.
Over the years, more musicians performed and larger audiences listened, and three years ago, LOMA outgrew Winter Carnival. “It was hard to find space for all the people who actually wanted to attend—we were getting over 200 people,” said current LOMA organizer Rich Eilbert. It was clear that to continue, LOMA was going to need a bigger space and some dedicated management. Help came in the form of Rich Eilbert, a Lincoln resident for nearly 25 years and seasoned open mic’er as both an audience member and performer. Eilbert (who has a PhD in physics and has worked on designing X-ray equipment for airport security) offered to organize the events moving forward, and the Lincoln Public Library was settled on as the new venue.
Under Eilbert’s management, LOMA has continued to expand, even bringing in some professional acts to generate more buzz, including internationally known folk musician Geoff Bartley.
“We were really glad to get Geoff Bartley. We had a big crowd for him—maybe the biggest crowd ever. He’s a very fine musician,” said Eilbert.
Of the musician’s newest CD, folk legend Tom Paxton wrote, “Geoff Bartley has hit another one out of the park.”
Whether it’s an internationally known musician or your neighbor’s kid, what makes open-mic performances like LOMA special is audience involvement. LOMA is a community-sponsored event, and it’s the community that keeps it going. No promises can be made for the quality of the music, but the performers and the audience are guaranteed to have fun.
“There are a lot of talented people in this town,” Eilbert said, and some of them can be found at the library on the second Monday of each month. The next Lincoln Open Mic Acoustic night will be February 11 and will feature Nancy Beaudette. Other performers and spectators are welcome, and free refreshments will be served.
Brett Wittenberg is a resident of Lexington, Mass.
The 2013 Lincoln Winter Carnival kicks off Friday, February 1 with community bingo and a concert by the U.S. Air Force band of LIberty Jazz Ensemble. Other events that weekend include:
Click here for the full schedule.
Lincolnites had a great time socializing and enjoying the music of Weston’s Ancient Mariners at the annual First Day celebration hosted by the Pierce House Committee on the afternoon of January 1, 2013. Harold McAleer took photos and created this slide show on YouTube — see how many people you can recognize…
Here’s a video of the band doing “Flat Foot“…
Harold also stepped up to the mike to sing “Million-Dollar Baby” and “It Had to Be You.” Go to his YouTube channel to browse his full collection.
Sandeep Das
The Birches School and Lincoln Nursery School are hosting a concert featuring tabla master Sandeep Das from Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble on Sunday, Dec. 2 at 3:30 p.m. A children’s singalong led by music teachers Mark Weltner and Abby Zocher will follow Sandeep Das’ performance. Families are invited to a pizza party after the concert at the Birches School (14 Bedford Road, Stone Church across from Bemis Hall).
Tickets are $15 for adults, $5 for children, $30 for families and $10 for seniors. Please pay online at www.birchesschool.org or with cash or check at the door. For more information, call Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis at 781-728-5438.
For the first time in decades, adults looking for hands-on art instruction at the deCordova won’t see any offerings.
(This article originally appeared in the Lincoln Journal on September 7, 2012.)
By Alice Waugh
This fall, for the first time in decades, there will be no semester-based art classes at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. DeCordova has scrapped its school in favor of a greater focus on sculpture and family-based programs. The Lincoln Nursery School, which has rented one of the art-class studios for the past two years, is moving its entire operation into the vacated studios.
The museum school closure, which faculty members were told about last November, has engendered a feeling of loss in many students and longtime deCordova faculty members.
Ian Watson plays the organ at the First Parish Church.
(This article was originally published in the Lincoln Journal on August 23, 2012.)
By Alice Waugh
As a boy in Buckinghamshire, England, Ian Watson was obsessed with the piano and organ—”that’s all I could ever think about,” he said. He began a distinguished musical career shortly thereafter and now, a decade after emigrating to the United States, he’s adding another piece to his repertoire: music director for Lincoln’s First Parish Church.
Watson, a self-described freelance conductor and keyboardist who lives in Hudson, is artistic director for the Arcadia Players, a period instrument ensemble based at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For several years, he was also director of music at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Worcester, where he revitalized the choir and started a music festival, and conducted several major concerts a year.
Lincoln will get its own taste of period music from the Arcadia Players on October 7, when Watson will lead the group in a performance of Mozart and Hayden concertos in Bemis Hall (tickets are $20 at the door). He will also play fortepiano, the type of instrument used by those two composers.
The music from period instruments (for example, violins strung with gut and having a flatter and shorter fingerboard) “is beautifully clear and clean,” Watson said. “If Beethoven walked in, he would immediately recognize what we were doing by the style of music and the instruments we were playing.”
At age 14, Watson won a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was awarded all the prizes for organ performance and others for piano accompaniment. He also received the Recital Diploma, the highest award for performance excellence. His first organ appointment was at St. Margaret’s, Westminster Abbey, at the age of 19, a position he held for 10 years. Watson later held several prestigious positions in London, including organist of St. Marylebone Parish church and music director of the historic Christopher Wren Church, St. James’s Piccadilly.
Until recently, the First Parish had both a music director and an organist, but after longtime music director Malcolm Hawkins retired last year, the music committee decided to look for a candidate who could do both jobs, said committee chair Mary Briggs. “The choir loft looks like it was designed for one person to do both jobs, so obviously it’s worked in the past,” she observed.
Watson’s audition was “fabulous,” Briggs said. “He blew us away with his organ playing —we’d never heard it sound so wonderful, and he got us in the choir to sing better than we thought we could. We’re so fortunate to have this musician with an international reputation joining us. I can’t wait for the beginning of the church year.”
“The First Parish of Lincoln offers an opportunity to present a wide variety of music, both choral and instrumental,” Watson said. “My intention is to build on what’s here, not to change anything for the sake of change, but to develop and expand it to the best it can be.”