Singer-Songwriter Gailmor

To Perform At Meeting House

The Montessori Community School (MCS) at Brookfield is sponsoring a family concert by Jon Gailmor, a Vermont-based singer-songwriter, on Saturday, March 11, at Newtown Meeting House. The concert will begin at 2 pm, with doors opening at 1:30.

The special performance will provide music, laughter and entertainment for all ages. While a political and environmental awareness lies at the root of Mr Gailmor’s songs, some of his best tunes are directed at the younger members of his audience.

Ticket are $20 for adults, and $15 for children ages 3-12. Admission is free for toddlers ages 2 and under, but they must sit on someone’s lap.

There will be a bake sale and specialty wildflower seed mix sale during intermission and after the show.  All proceeds will benefit MCS.

For tickets, mail a check or money order made payable to MCS at Brookfield to MCS at Brookfield, 21 West Whisconier Road, PO Box 5255, Brookfield CT 06804. Include a note with your telephone number and indicate the number of adults, children and toddlers (under 3) by name. Names are being requested because there will be master guest list used to check people in at the door.

The host of a children’s music radio show, “Just Kiddin,” broadcast by WDEV in Vermont since 1979, Mr Gailmor has sung witty tunes about circus animals (“Jumbo the Elephant”), dogs who pursue an education (“Randy and Ned Go to School”), the joys of sandboxes (“Dirt!”), the suburbanizing of America (“Edifice Complex”) and international brotherhood (“Letters”).

Mr Gailmor has been writing songs and trying them out on people prenatal through prehistoric since 1971. He has performed in a tennis stadium in Lima, Peru, in theatres in Russia, Latvia and Ecuador, in schools, colleges, childcare and senior centers around the United States, in clubs, coffeehouses and prisons, and on tour with Vermont Symphony Orchestra, to name a few settings. Mr Gailmor’s musical locales and audiences continue to expand, and he gives songwriting workshops and residencies in schools and at conferences throughout the country.

Mr Gailmor graduated from Staples High School in Westport, after spending a portion of his early childhood years in the suburbs of Philadelphia and New York. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1970, Mr turned to music, performing for a few years in a duo with fellow singer/songwriter Rob Carlson.

Mr Gailmor spent two years in Europe before returning to the United States to begin performing as a soloist. The turning point in Mr Gailmor’s career came when he began performing for youngsters. His most successful recording, Dirt!, included the title track which received an honorary mention as Best Children’s Song from the National Academy of Independent Record Distributors in 1984.

Much of Mr Gailmor’s political consciousness was inherited from his father, William Gailmor, a reporter for The Daily News and PM magazine and a radio talk show host who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

The folk music of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Josh White was heard regularly in the Gailmor home; Mr Gailmor’s sister, Wendy Newton, also went on to found and manage the Green Linnet record label, headquartered in Danbury.

Jon Gailmor has released six albums in all, including Childish Eyes and his latest, Checking In, released in 2004.  Mr Gailmor lives in Elmore, Vt., with his wife, son, two daughters, and other creatures with various numbers of legs, or none at all.

For more information on the show call Gina Wolfman at 426-6155.

The goal at MCS at Brookfield, Inc. is to provide 3-6 year olds from the surrounding areas with the best possible beginning to their schooling careers.  Enrollment is filled each year almost exclusively by word-of-mouth, with children from Ridgefield, Danbury, Brookfield, Bethel, New Milford, New Fairfield, Southbury, and a large percentage from Newtown.  The school is small, consisting of approximately 30 families, and relies on fundraising activities to support their mission and acquire extra items to enhance the learning environment.