While the climate may be warming above the Mason-Dixon Line, Grantham’s Gaye LaCasce and Dan Signor can’t wait any longer to take their musical talents south.
The Maine-born married couple will wrap up 15 years of barbershop singing and of directing choruses in the Upper Valley this Saturday night, leading their Harmony Night community ensemble through its annual A Cappella Showcase at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon.
Next stop: Pensacola, Fla., where Signor will teach voice at an arts-oriented elementary school and direct the Pensacola Bay Harmonizers barbershop ensemble.
“The weather is the reason that we’re leaving,” LaCasce, who by day directs development and community engagement for Valley Regional Healthcare in Claremont, said this week. “We’re less and less in love with winter every year. We’re summertime sports lovers.
“Summers here are beautiful, but they’re just too darned short.”
After a visit to Pensacola last year, LaCasce and Signor, longtime choral director at Lebanon High School, started talking about easing into retirement there some years down the line; LaCasce is in her early 60s, Signor in his mid-40s.
“We just fell in love with the area,” LaCasce said. “Aside from the weather and the recreational opportunities, it’s very much a music and arts mecca.”
The couple felt the same way about the Upper Valley after they arrived with daughter Alexa, then 12, in 2002. While Signor began teaching at Lebanon Junior High School and LaCasce worked at Colby-Sawyer College in New London. In 2006, they started Harmony Night, originally as an outlet for high school students with too many extracurricular activities, such as sports, to practice singing in the hours immediately after school. It evolved into an alternative for community members of all ages who enjoy singing in groups but aren’t inclined to audition. The ensemble currently numbers about 35 singers.
“It has become like a family,” LaCasce said. “We’ve met people we never would have met, from all walks of life. … We’ve had people of all abilities, all kinds of backgrounds in music and no background at all. We both believe that music should be accessible to everyone. People are expected to learn their parts on their own, and we give them the tools to do that, but beyond that it’s more about having a good time together.”
Through Harmony Night, LaCasce got to know the women with whom she eventually formed the barbershop quartet Aged to Perfection. Meanwhile, through his participation in the North Country Chordsmen, Signor met the singers with whom he formed the men’s foursome Fast Track. Aged to Perfection and Fast Track both compete around the country, and LaCasce and Signor expect to continue to perform with them.
Meanwhile, LaCasce hopes that Harmony Night will carry on with the new directors, candidates for which are now being interviewed.
“We have people singing really well in their 70s,” LaCasce said. “It’s great for the younger kids in the group to see that they can continue to do this for the rest of their lives.”
Harmony Night performs its annual A Cappella Showcase on Saturday night at 7 at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. Admission is by donation, with proceeds going to the chorus’ Harmony Explosion scholarship program for Upper Valley teens to attend the Barbershop Harmony Society summer camp in Massachusetts. To learn more about the chorus, visit harmonynight.weebly.com.
Best Bets
The teen actors of the Newport-based Performer’s Playground troupe and of the Claremont-based Amplified Arts’ The Academy stage an adaptation of Hamlet at Amplified Arts’ theater at 31 Pleasant St., in Claremont on Friday night at 7, at 2 on Saturday afternoon and at 7 on Saturday night. The modern retelling sets the Shakespearean tragedy in 2024, mixing in technology and current themes. To reserve tickets ($13) and learn more, visit amplifiedartsnh.com or the Amplified Arts page on Facebook, or email amplifiedartsnh@gmail.com.
Muskeg Music’s spring series of contradances at Norwich’s Tracy Hall concludes with a Quebecois feast on Saturday night. Fiddlers Claude Methe and Pascal Gemme and guitarist Dana Whittle open with a jam session between 5 and 7, then set the rhythm for dancing between 8 and 11, with Dave Eisenstadter calling the steps. A potluck dinner will be served downstairs from 7 to 8. There will be a walk-through for beginning dancers from 7:45 to 8. Dancers should bring clean, soft-soled shoes. Admission to the jam session costs $10. Admission to the main dance is $6 to $9. For more information, visit uvdm.org.
Strafford singer Iva Wich collaborates with saxophonist Mike Parker on a session of rhythm and blues at the Stony Brook Tavern in Stockbridge on Saturday night from 6 to 9.
Vermont stand-up artist Kendall Farrell headlines the monthly Comedy Night at the Engine Room in White River Junction on Wednesday at 7:30. Admission is $5.
Looking Ahead
Interplay Jazz & Arts will host a jam session next Thursday night at 7 at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock. Instrumentalists, singers, photographers and other visual artists are welcome to participate, and admission for spectators is free. To sign up to perform, visit interplayjazzandarts.org.
The Bradford Conservation Commission will host a Music on the Mountain concert at the Wright’s Mountain Lookout on June 17, with performances at 4 p.m. by Marianda Moody Miller, at 5 by Thomas Chapin and Friends and by Derek Burkins at 6.
Pianist Will Ogmundson will play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, marches of John Philip Sousa and works by Aaron Copland and other composers during a concert on the theme of “American Illuminations” on June 17 at 7:30 p.m., at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. Admission is $20, with part of the proceeds going to the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth.
Choreographer Marie Fourcault will lead her Ensemble Marie through a performance of “Inanimate Objects: Do You Have a Soul?” on June 18 at 2 p.m. in the atrium of Dartmouth College’s Black Family Visual Arts Center in Hanover. Admission is free. Fourcault and the dancers will discuss the work after the performance.
The Trio Americano team of cellist Eugene Friesen, singer-songwriter Yaniel Matos and percussionist Cafe Edson da Silva will range across the spectrum of music of the Western Hemisphere at Woodstock’s North Universalist Chapel on June 20 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 at the door.
Ricky Skaggs will be the headliner among the musicians scheduled to perform at the 17th annual Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival, June 22 to 25 at the Tunbridge Fairgrounds. Skaggs will play a 90-minute set with Kentucky Thunder on June 23 at 8 p.m. Among the acts playing on three stages around the fairgrounds throughout the festival will be the Rickey Wasson Band, Dreamcatcher, Karl Shiflett, the Seth Sawyer Band and The Gibson Brothers. For single- and multiple-day tickets and more information, visit jennybrookbluegrass.com or email candi@jennybrookbluegrass.com.
In a concert benefiting the Rusty Berrings Skate Park in West Lebanon, Michael Franti & Spearhead will rock the Lebnaon Opera House on June 22 at 7:30 p.m. For tickets ($59.50 to $75) and more information, visit lebanonoperahouse.org or call 603-448-0400.
On the theme of “DreamCycle,” Thetford’s Liam Gundlach will direct the CirqueUs troupe, featuring several Upper Valley natives and alumni of Circus Smirkus, through performances at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction on June 24 and 25. For tickets and more information, visit thecirqueus.com.
Theater/Performance Art
The Parish Players continue their production of Steel Magnolias with performances tonight, Friday night and Saturday night at 7:30 and on Sunday afternoon at 3. The play, which follows the lives of the proprietor and customers of a Louisiana beauty salon, runs through June 18. To reserve tickets ($12 to $15) and learn more, visit parishplayers.org.
The Old Church Theater in Bradford completes its staging of the Tony Sportiello mystery/comedy One Night in the Valley with performances on Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 and at 4 on Sunday afternoon. The play contains adult language. For tickets ($6 to $12) and more information, visit oldchurchtheater.org or call 802-222-3322.
Music
Former Dr. Burma keyboardist Eugene Uman leads his Convergence Quartet to the former Clark Farm in Barnard this evening at 5:30, to serenade the weekly Feast and Field Market with a set of jazz. Admission is free.
Norwich violist Hannah Chipman and West Hartford violinist Katya Muller perform Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet, and works of other composers, with the Morendo Quartet and piano accompanist Victoria Nooe, on Wednesday night at 5 at the Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hanover. Admission is $15, with proceeds helping the performers attend summer music programs.
The Seven Stars Arts Center in Sharon is inviting Upper Valley girls ages 7 to 18 to audition for the Vermont Girls Choir, which will perform during 2017-2018. Rehearsals begin in September. To schedule an audition and learn more, email Jessie Pierpont at vermontgirlschoir@gmail.com.
Bar and Club Circuit
Singer-songwriter Doug Henry appears at the tavern of the Lyme Inn tonight at 6. The Bradford-based folk-rock duo Don and Jenn perform next Thursday night at 6.
Singer-songwriter Erik Boedtker plays at Taverne on the Square in Claremont tonight at 6. And on Friday night at 8, the Conniption Fits rock the house.
Still Hill pulls into Windsor Station tonight at 7:30 to play its blend of progressive bluegrass, folk, Americana and old-timey roots music. Following the quintet to the venue over the coming week are The Stone Cold Roosters at 9 Friday night, The Roadtrash Band at 10 on Saturday night and on singer-songwriter Erik Boedtker Tuesday night at 6.
The Sensible Shoes duo of Barbara Blaisdell and Tim Utt perform at the Common Man in Claremont on Friday night from 6 to 9.
The Stockwell Brothers set a newgrass rhythm for dancing on Friday night at 9 at the Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners.
Acoustic rocker Ben Fuller kicks off the weekend of music at Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon on Friday night at 9. And on Saturday night at 9, singer-songwriter Brian Warren takes the microphone.
Alex Smith & The Mountain Sound shares Americana rhythms at the Salt hill Pub in downtown Lebanon on Friday night at 9 and at Salt hill’s Newport venue on Saturday night at 9.
Better Days plays at Lebanon’s Salt hill Pub on Saturday night at 9.
Singer-songwriter Dan Masterson performs at the Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Saturday night at 9.
Singer-songwriter Jeff Nicholson, a former Hartland resident, returns Saturday to play at the Stone Arch Bakery in Lebanon on Saturday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Bow Thayer plays his weekly session of Americana on Wednesday night at 7:30.
Open Mics
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret tonight at 7
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater holds a weekly open mic starting at 7:30 on Thursday nights. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover, Monday nights at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic, Tuesday nights at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts his weekly open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern at 8:30 on Wednesday night.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.