For its first public act, the Juneberry Community Chorus will perform more than a dozen songs at the First Congregational Church on Thetford Hill on Sunday afternoon.
And while leading the 45 singers through a repertoire ranging from a Celtic blessing and a Sweet Honey in the Rock spiritual to a Woody Guthrie ballad, conductor Patricia Norton of Thetford hopes the performance will inspire members of the audience to consider sharing their own voices — either for the first time or as prodigal sons and daughters returning to the art.
“I was so excited after yesterday’s dress rehearsal,” Norton said during a telephone interview on Monday. “It’s so exciting to see these people opening up to what it’s like to make music as a group.”
This particular group, with singers ranging in age from early 30s to 97, has been learning and rehearsing since September. Their choral class formed after Norton’s Thetford-based Juneberry Choral Singing School merged with the Lebanon-based Upper Valley Music Center (UVMC) late last summer. Before the merger, Norton had taught classes but didn’t have the resources or time to lead her students in public performances.
In addition to the chorus, which costs $50 per singer for a 16-week session leading to a semester-ending performance, Juneberry and the UVMC also offer classes in Singing for the Stage, Voice Performance, Vocal Exploration and Choral Skill Development. For parts of Sunday’s concert, children and families from the music center’s Music Together classes will join the chorus on stage.
A Juneberry class that Etna resident Wendy Conquest took several years ago led her back to a pastime that she had set aside in her teens.
“I was going to be a voice major in college, but I didn’t want to practice, and I didn’t think I’d ever come back to singing with groups,” Conquest, an alto now in her 60s, recalled during a telephone interview on Tuesday. “Before I started again, singing was no longer a part of my life, and I realized I’d been missing a joyful avocation. I signed up for a class, and I loved it. It was a blast. Patricia as a teacher is funny, is welcoming and she’s passionate about having people enjoy singing.”
While she enjoyed the classes, Conquest wasn’t planning to perform in public until the chorus class opened in September.
Now she wonders why she waited so long.
“As we were leaving a rehearsal the other day, a friend of mine said, ‘You come out after an hour and a half of singing, and it’s like coming out of a really good yoga class,’ ” Conquest said. “When you hear the sound you create with a bunch of other voices, there’s nothing like it.”
The challenging regimen of memorizing and singing the music is providing a lifeline for Conquest, whose husband, Charley Conquest, a guitarist with whom she occasionally sang in private settings, died unexpectedly this past fall at age 62.
“There’s a pile of music to learn,” she said. “But singing like that, it brings joy where there isn’t a lot right now.”
The new ensemble has benefited from its 16 weeks of tuning, Sundays at the church and Mondays at the music center in Lebanon, given the number of songs and the breadth of the material.
“It’s a lot of music to memorize,” Norton said. “It’s really challenging for adults. For young people, their neurons are more flexible. But I think more people are starting to appreciate that memorizing music is a great way of supporting your brain.”
Standing in front of the Juneberry chorus during a rehearsal at the church in Thetford the other day, Norton basked in the support she heard coming back at her.
“I have an audio recording in my mind of an unauditioned choir: ‘Oh. Would I want to go hear this?’ ” she said. “Honestly, they just sounded beautiful. I was thrilled. They’re doing something right.
“They have a beautiful blend.”
The Juneberry Community Chorus performs its inaugural “Celebration of Song” at the First Congregational Church on Thetford Hill on Sunday afternoon at 4. Registration forms for the choral course and for other singing classes will be available before and after the concert. To learn more about the concert and about Juneberry’s offerings through UVMC, visit juneberrymusic.com or uvmusic.org or call 603-448-1642.
Best Bets
The Jones Family Singers fill Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium with gospel music tonight at 7 in Hanover. To reserve tickets ($17 to $25) and learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Enfield-native singer-songwriter Brooks Hubbard performs at Salt hill Pub in Hanover tonight at 7 and at Salt hill’s Lebanon hangout on Friday night at 7.
Violist Jennifer Turbes, pianist Vicky Nooe and soprano Helen Hassinger collaborate at the Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon on Saturday night at 6, with a performance of works that contemporary American composers such as Libby Larsen, William Bolcom and Cipullo built around poems by Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Jane Kenyon and others. Admission at the door costs $5 to $10.
If you don’t already have tickets for another movie or concert among the many around the Upper Valley on Saturday night, call (603-646-2422) or visit the box office of Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center right now to secure a seat in Spaulding Auditorium for a screening of The Eagle Huntress. Along with stunning cinematography of the frigid high plains and mountains of Mongolia, the documentary offers a portrait of girl power in the form of Aisholpan Nurgaiv, the charismatic 13-year-old heir to a male-centered family and cultural tradition of training golden eagles to hunt. A stirring yet subtle musical score and narration from new Star Wars heroine Daisy Ridley complete the package. After the screening, which starts at 7, an expert in birds of prey will introduce raptors from the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee.
To learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or imdb.com and type in the movie title.
Acclaimed pianist Simone Dinnerstein returns to Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall on Saturday night to play works of Franz Schubert and Philip Glass. For advance tickets ($33) to the recital, which starts at 7:30, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464. Tickets at the door cost $10 to $35.
Performance artist/filmmaker Miranda July shares her Lost Child! show at Dartmouth’s Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover on Tuesday night at 7. Admission is free.
Looking Ahead
As a benefit for the civil-rights work of the GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders program,Vermont Pride Theater will host a staged reading of Topher Payne’s play Perfect Arrangement, at Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall on Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Admission costs $12 to $17 in advance and $15 to $20 at the door. To reserve tickets and learn more, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
Theater/Performance Art
Northern Stage kicks off its world premiere of Jack Neary’s dark comedy Trick or Treat with previews at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction at 7:30 tonight and Friday night, before opening officially at 7:30 on Saturday night. Stagings over the coming week are scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 5, and 7:30 on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. For tickets ($15 to $30) and information, visit northernstage.org or call 802-296-7000.
On Sunday afternoon at 3:30, before the matinee, Neary will lead a conversation about the evolution of the play from early readings at Northern Stage through the current version. Admission is free.
The North Country Chorus stages Haverhill resident Bob Mead’s Camelot-inspired musical Arthur’s Dark Angel during its 36th annual Madrigal Dinner on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the town hall in Monroe, N.H. Seating is limited to 100 tickets ($33) for each performance, with shows scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 4:30 Sunday afternoon. To reserve seats, visit tickets.catamountarts.org or call 888-757-5559. To learn more about the chorus and about the production, visit northcountrychorus.org.
Shaker Bridge Theatre raises the curtain on its production of Love Alone with stagings tonight, Friday night and Saturday night at 7:30 and on Sunday afternoon at 2:30. To reserve tickets ($16 to $32) and learn more, visit shakerbridgetheatre.org or call 603-448-3750.
Music
Singer-guitarist David Greenfield ranges among genres on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., during the indoor Lebanon Farmers Market at the Upper Valley Senior Center.
Conductor Matthew Marsit leads the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble into Faulkner Recital Hall in Hanover on Sunday afternoon at 4, for a performance of works of Mozart, Strauss, Stravinsky and Dartmouth graduate Oliver Caplan. For tickets ($10) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Film
The Upper Valley Jewish Community screens Zero Motivation next Wednesday night at 7 in room 13 of Dartmouth College’s Carpenter Hall in Hanover. The 2014 feature follows a unit of Israeli woman soldiers wrapping up their mandatory term of service at a remote base in the desert. Admission is free. To learn more about the community’s series, which runs through Feb. 22, visit uvjc.org.
Bar and Club Circuit
The Rock-It Science Band from Rochester, N.Y., performs classic rock in the tavern of the Lyme Inn tonight at 6.
Acoustic chameleon Joseph Stallsmith performs at the Canoe Club tonight at 6:30 and returns at the same time next Thursday night. Commanding the microphone between Stallsmith’s appearances with 6:30 shows over the coming week are pianist Gillian Joy on Friday, guitarist Ed Eastridge Saturday and jazz pianist Jonathan Kaplan on Sunday. Also, the acoustic rock ensemble Black Shoals N.B. plays on Wednesday night starting at 9.
The roots duo Down Cellar plays at Windsor Station tonight at 7:30, followed by ToasT with a set of funky soul on Friday night at 9:30, by the Stone Cold Roosters with a session of Americana on Saturday night at 9:30 and by singer-songwriter Richie Hackett on Tuesday night at 6.
Arthur James sings and plays the blues at Bentley’s Restaurant in Woodstock tonight at 7.
Singer-songwriter Jim Hollis performs at Taverne on the Square in Claremont on Friday night at 7. And on Saturday night at 9, The Conniption Fits rock the house.
Singer-songwriter Tad Dries plays jazz in the tavern at Jesse’s in Hanover on Friday night at 5.
Pianist Sonny Saul performs works of Bill Evans and Earl Zindar at SILO Distillery in Windsor on Friday night from 5:30 to 7:30, with the accompaniment of Peter Concilio on string bass and Pete Michelinie on drums.
Guitarist Ted Mortimer leads The Oldsmobiles into Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night at 9, to set a rockin’ rhythm for dancing.
The Rich Thomas Duo kicks off the weekend of music at Salt hill Pub in Hanover with a set of acoustic rock on Friday night at 7, followed on Saturday night at 8 by the Conniption Fits.
Wanda and the Sound Junkies perform at the Salt hill Pub in Newport on Friday night at 8, and the rock band Tirade seizes the microphone at 8 on Saturday night.
The B3 Brotherhood rallies ‘round Tom Caselli’s Hammond organ at Lebanon’s Salt hill Pub on Saturday night at 8, to play R&B and jazz rhythms from the 1960s and early 1970s.
Singer-guitarist Dan Freihofer plays an acoustic set at Stone Arch Bakery in Lebanon on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Bow Thayer plays his weekly set of Americana at the Skinny Pancake on Wednesday night at 7:30.
Open Mics
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at 7 tonight at ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic 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 on Monday nights at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
Dan Freihofer guest-hosts the weekly “Pickin’ Party” for musicians of all ages and abilities Tuesday night at 7 at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover.